


Crimson Sunrise, Deathly Night

by PadawanTimeLord



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: And all the Things Historians Want you to Forget, Aphrodite as a Snoke-Like Figure, Cunnilingus, Graphic Depictions of Violence and Torture, Greek Mythology AU, Kylo Ren as Eros - Freeform, Kylo Ren is a Mess, Masturbation, Multi, Raw Greek Myths, Rey as Psyche, Rey is too precious for this sick world, There’s a long flash back, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Ya’ll are very welcome here, and a s-l-u-t, for those who just want an Anidala Greek AU, psyche and eros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-03-23 05:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadawanTimeLord/pseuds/PadawanTimeLord
Summary: The Festival of Embers is a celebration that the freed slaves of the Empire throw every year in honor of those who have passed during the Great Migration. During the festival, one of Queen Leia Amidala's adopted daughters is especially noticed for her beauty and clever wit. Whispers of her existence quickly spread throughout the small kingdom of Naboo and to neighboring nations.Aphrodite hears of this girl whose face is rumored to be far more beautiful than her own. In an ironically ungodly fit of anger, she sends one of her paladins to take care of the problem and cause the girl far more grief than deserved.However, when the Paladin Kylo Ren arrives to pierce Princess Rey's heart with a love arrow to make her lay with a beast, he pricks himself instead. Uncontrollably lusting for her, Ren will do whatever it takes to make the clever princess his, body, soul, and mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Are you here just for the Anidala Greek AU? Padme’s story starts at Chapter 14!

"I don't understand why they keep saying those things about me." Rey picks at the stray hairs that are fleeing from the night before's hairstyle. She returned to her bed so late last night that she hadn't bothered calling a maid to help undo the intricately braided buns she's insisted having since being a child. 

  
"It's simple. They're true," Jessika states, handing her a pearl-studded comb to help untangle a particularly angry knot. The girl herself had simply undone her much more simple hairstyle in favor of a braid, her hair blissfully simple to tame this morning.

  
  
"I don't think so," Rey mutters stubbornly, the comb tearing at her hair.

  
  
Rose hands Rey a jar of oil, "Don't listen to them. They were all just a bunch of drunken idiots vying for any girl's attention, saying whatever they thought it took to get into your pants."

  
  
Rey's mouth thins into a straight line as she studies her reflection in the mirror. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." She doesn't know if she should feel better or disappointed, so she shoves last night's festival in the back of her mind and looks ahead to today. 

  
Jessika is considerably cranky due to one hell of a hangover. Rey decides that she must have spent the whole night downing glass after glass of that sweet, sparkling alcohol to be in so much pain. Normally Jess isn't one to back out of chores, her ethic is equal to Rey's and Rose's, so Rey decides conclusively that Jess isn't faking it. 

  
Her adoptive mother, Leia, is already going over last night's financials when Rey breezes into the room, ready to help with a stylus.

  
  
“Good morning, Rey,” Leia greets distractedly, quickly returning to mumbling about the repair expenses. Some idiot apparently thought it would be funny to let all the horses out to run through the town’s square. 

  
Leia is the small country’s ruling queen. Lots of the more ridiculous rumors circulating about her can be chalked up to people who fear her. Plenty of foreign delegates are constantly trying very hard to figure out what exactly goes on in her head. Some people whisper that she has an heir, that the father is a god, a fae, sometimes even a bull, and that Leia was so ashamed of her affair that she locked her child (there’s no agreement on the gender) away so she wouldn’t have to see it. That, in an attempt to sate her guilt, adopts orphaned girls and primes them for leadership. Whether it be to take her place when she dies or to start governing cities, no one, not even the girls themselves, know. Not one of her sister orphans complains, though.

  
  
Rey helps Leia develop a quick financial plan for last night’s destruction, taking some allowance from the new stable development, funneling it into a restorative project. The poor statue of the First Queen Amidala is missing a section of her skirt and arm after a stampede of panicking horses ran into the rather modest monument. 

  
Once her work of helping dictate today’s dinner for an important meeting with an ambassador from Athens, she rewards herself for her work by taking a small chunk of bread out to the cliffs, eating while watching the roaring ocean slowly wear the face of the rocks down. 

  
The sun warms her skin pleasantly, the spray from the waves occasionally smattering against her feet. Outside, away from the constant demand and the horrible effort to keep her head up and not show weakness, she feels like she can breath easier. Maybe it’s the salty air from the ocean. Maybe she just can’t stand the scrutiny of her lifestyle. 

  
The wind whispers in her ears that something is coming. She has long since learned to listen and is thus filled with apprehension at what might be around the corner. She stands, finishing her bread, and begins the short walk back to the pale, cream-colored villa that had far more rooms than anyone could use. Again, she doesn’t bother calling a maid to help her as she gets dressed in her far nicer, evening chiton. The edges are dyed in a pale blue, the thread dyed to look like gold. Kaydel, another orphan-sister, helps put her hair back up into three buns. 

  
“I don’t understand why you never do anything else with your hair,” She comments again for the umpteenth time, braiding a few strands to make it a bit more interesting.

  
  
“I just like it that way.” Rey lies so fluidly she sometimes forgets that it’s not the truth. 

  
“Suit yourself.” 

  
Dinner with the Athens Ambassador turns out to be fine. He has the palest skin Rey has ever seen, little dots of freckles peppering his nose and neck. His hair is the color of a dying red sunset, more orange than any blond Rey has seen in person. 

  
“Armitage Hux,” Rey greets smoothly, “How are you tonight?” 

  
“Adequate.” Hux isn’t one for fluffy pleasantries, which Rey is thankful for because neither is she. They chat about the political unrest with the women who wish to own land on their own. Rey, of course, stands behind this but Hux is the kind of man who doesn’t take any side until there’s a clear winner. Rey understands this but respects him less for that nonetheless.

  
  
The dinner ends, Rey downs her wine goblet to help her feel sleepy, then goes up to her bedroom. She tugs her hair loose, everything coming out from the looser knots Kaydel made, haphazardly tossing the pins onto the bed stand beside her. With barely any energy to function further, she presses her face up into the pillow and falls fast asleep. 

 

  
\--- 

 

  
Kylo Ren doesn’t take any heed to rumors. They’re normally useless, grossly exaggerated, and about the most mundane of things. Adonis from the fishing guild can catch twenty fish in one minute. Eugenius the huntsman can carry a two hundred pound catch on his back. Lies and deceit crafted to massage the ego of those the claims are about. 

  
So when he catches a whisper of the most beautiful woman in the world, he thinks utterly nothing of it. Until, of course, the whispers suggest that she is more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. Well, that can’t be good, he muses. He counts down from ten, and sure enough, as soon as he hits zero Hermes flies through the doors and screams something barely comprehensible about Ren needing to get to Olympus right the fuck now. 

  
An earthquake confirms what Ren already knows.

  
  
He leaves the estate on his forbidden island, spreading his inky black wings and taking to the sky. The air moves through his hair invitingly, the gentle caress of a past lover giving him a taste of what Ren could have if he is willing to chase for it. He is not. The breeze ceases as the Anamoi, a wind spirit, leaves to pout.

  
  
Hermes keeps close to Ren up until the point where they arrive on the an estate entirely dedicated to Aphrodite, where he gives Ren an apologetic look but quickly falls back to avoid confrontation. Ren lands elegantly, without so much as shifting his precariously balanced cloth that wraps around his waist. A few steps in and he can see the destruction his goddess has made. Shards of one of the kind vases litter the floor, paintings by the most talented artists of their time ripped to shreds. One head of a druid who probably delivered the news on the floor, the body nowhere to be found. 

  
Ren walks across the atrium, ignoring the glass that doesn’t pierce his skin, heading up the stairs to where Aphrodite’s main bedroom is. She lays, face buried in her arms dramatically, on the bed that is large enough for the occasional orgies she hosts. Her body is twisted in the most aesthetically pleasing if dramatic sobbing pose, though Ren would wager it is considerably uncomfortable to be in. 

  
“Kylo! Oh, Kylo!” Her face, even when puffy from sobbing, is delicate and beautiful. Her appearance shifts, constantly, whenever she’s in the mood. Each shape Kylo swears is the most beautiful of them all, though that can’t be possible. Today her skin is warm and golden, her eyes tiger-orange with rage. Her hair is jet black, bangs that fall to her eyebrows and with two small braids on either side of the front that are tied off with golden beads. Her body is thin and skin unblemished, breasts out and nipples raised like pomegranates.

  
  
“You look exquisite,” he says, and he means it with every inch of his soul. 

  
“All the girls in Egypt are doing it these days.” Aphrodite dismisses him with a wave of her hand, though he knows she loves to hear him compliment her. She looks up at him, her tiger eyes bearing into his, “I’m sure you’ve heard.” Her voice warbles, convincingly real to anyone but he. 

  
“I have.” He kneels in front of the bed, his expression softening for only her. “My goddess, they are but the chittering of drunken fools. No one could match your beauty, nor your grace, nor your prowess. No one could ever hope to match a goddess as you, they might as well slit their own throats instead of trying.”

  
  
She sniffs, sitting up and undoing the tie that kept her cloth in place. “They might as well, should they.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement. She looks out the large opening that’s far too large to be a window, into the cloudless sky. Her fingers pull the blanket from her body until she’s completely naked, her body completely hairless in all places. She holds one finger out to Ren, a silent command. He leans forward and licks it once.

  
  
She brings the finger to the folds between her legs, “Oh, my sweet paladin.” She rubs in slow, gentle circles, “My sweet, beautiful paladin. Kylo Ren, I feel that you are the only one I can turn to these days.”

  
  
His cock grows, hardening even faster at her sugary words. Her scent fills the air as she dips a single finger inside herself, using her other hand to massage a dark, stiff nipple. “My goddess.” His voice is dry. His brain feels strange, dizzy like he’s had too much to drink. He inhales her delicious, mouth-watering scent again, wanting to touch himself, touch her, kiss her unhappiness away. 

  
“Paladin,” she whimpers, inserting another finger inside of herself and he knows she’s trying hard to scissor herself to an orgasm. He wants to bury his face in her perfect golden cunt and drink her up like fine wine, but he knows better than to move without a command. “Paladin. Tell me what you’d do for me.”

  
  
“I’d do anything for you, goddess. You are the center of my world, the source of my strength. I worship you, whatever you asked of me-” 

  
She makes the most beautiful sound, a whimpering moan as she puts a third finger into herself, “And why,” she gasps, high off his devotion, “would you do anything for me, sweet paladin?” 

  
“Because I’m your knight, your paladin. I’m your dog, I’m filth. I’m not worthy of you even looking at me. It’s beyond my honor to even be in the same room as you.” 

  
“You’re my dog.” She mews with delight, her fingers bucking into her hand.

  
  
“I’m lower than your dog.” He smells her as she cums, her legs wide open for him to see the way her cunt tightens around her fingers. She pumps her hand, in and out, in and out, riding her orgasm out until she’s shivering in the afterglow.

  
  
And glow she does. When she sits up, Ren could swear that she’s brighter than before, her golden skin shimmering in the sunlight. “Goddess.” He whispers. She offers him her cum soaked fingers, which he laps and sucks eagerly. 

  
“My good boy. You always know how to make me feel better,” Aphrodite coos, amused by his eagerness to please. 

  
“Thank you, my goddess.” Ren murmurs once he’s sure the rest of her cum is gone, looking at that perfect place in between her spread legs longingly. 

  
“Oh, but you would deserve more, wouldn’t you, if you did this one tinsy winsy favor for me.” She grabs his hair and pulls him closer to her cunt, “You want to eat me, don’t you. You want to lick my pussy until you can’t taste or smell anything but me for months and months.” 

  
“Yes, goddess.” Ren almost whimpers, his mouth watering at the thought. Very rarely does he ever actually get to have sex of any kind with her. Each time is even more satisfying and blissful than the next. 

  
“Killing her would be too good,” She muses, tracing the contours of his face, “Too easy. I want her reputation to be in shambles before she even crosses into Hades’ realm.” She ponders for a moment, her face lighting up as she gets an idea, “Ren. Make her fall in love with a horrifying monster.”   

  
Ren doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes, my goddess.” 

  
She released her grip on his hair and sprawls backward, “Don’t disappoint me, paladin.” 

  
“I will kill myself before that happens, my goddess.” He bows, brushing his hair to the ground, and leaves. 

  
It takes little time to locate the girl. She lives in the fresh, young country of Naboo, an island of runaway slaves and immigrants. Those runaway slaves and immigrants are of no joke, however. Under their elected Queen Leia Amidala, they have managed to run off every invader that has ever tried to take them to date. Whispers say that they use magic pulled from the old gods, beings who have been around even before his beloved Aphrodite. 

  
His arrows lay in his quiver as he scopes the countryside. The ocean surrounding the island of Naboo is treacherous if you don’t know the exact layout of the coral reefs. Legend says that First Queen Padme Amidala’s lover navigated the ships to safety by the Other-Sight, something that even the gods believe is a myth. Many cows lay out, munching on their cud. He hears a bull, pacing and kicking in a pen, ready to put his calf into a mate. 

  
Well, he doesn’t see any stray monsters strewn about, so Ren decides that’s probably good enough. All he has to do is wait until nightfall to make his move. 

 

\--- 

 

“Is there something specific you want me to tell these suitors that are lined up to see you?” Rose asks, glaring at the window at the men who are growing more and more impatient to get in.

  
  
“Maybe for them to fuck off?” Jessika suggests, her lips pursed and her eyes rolling to the ceiling.

  
  
“Well, I mean besides that.” Rose glances out the open window again, concern growing more and more clearly on her face, “I think they’ll start a riot by sundown if you don’t at least go out and wave.”

  
  
“Fine.” Rey snaps, thoroughly tired of having to deal with a sausage party that’s manifested outside her home. She peeks out the window and gives them what she feels is a half-hearted please-go-away wave, and everyone seems satisfied for the moment being. 

  
“Rey,” Leia’s gentle voice practically materialized behind her, “Perhaps, and I’m not going to force you to do anything, but perhaps you should take this as an opportunity.”

  
  
“What kind of opportunity,” Rey asks cautiously, knowing better than to toss away Leia’s advice.

  
  
“Maybe this is time for you to choose a husband.”

  
  
Rey tries very, very hard not to shoot the suggestion down. “They’re all here because they think I’m pretty, and just that.”

  
  
“I know, I know,” Leia smiles gently, “I sure some of them are simply curious and nothing more. Perhaps you’ll find someone worth your time.”

  
  
“Yeah, and perhaps not.” Jessika verbalizes Rey’s feelings for her.

  
  
“It’s your choice, Rey.” Leia nods at her, leaving the younger women alone to decide for themselves.

  
  
“You can’t be seriously considering this,” Jessika says, her face incredulous. “They’ll get you alone and rape you. Men can’t be trusted.” 

  
“Jessika, not all men are like that. Maybe Leia is right and Rey will find one decent man out there who is simply curious about the rumors,” Rose responds, glancing out in the crown again, “and maybe while she’s at it, we can find someone, too.” 

  
“Way to capitalize on my fame, ladies.” Rey tries to joke, but it falls flat. She remembers what the wind said yesterday, how it warned that something was coming. Everything is so clouded for her right now, she wants someone to help clear everything up for her. While Jess and Rose argue, Rey makes up her mind to try one thing out before stepping further. 

  
“I’m going to see the Oracle,” she announces untying her sash and retying it tighter. Jess and Rose both turn to her as though she’s insane, and, well, Rey supposes, she may very well be. 

  
“Do you want to die?” Rose almost screams, managing to quell her tone. She glances around her as Rey tells them her plan, nervous that someone might tell someone outside their circle. 

  
“I only want to ask who I’m going to marry,” Rey says defensively, “I don’t have time to be worried about this. I just want to know right now so I can focus on other things. Like work.” 

  
They argue. Jess hates anything she can’t understand, and she can’t understand the Oracle or her Powers of Other-Sight. Rey has a rudimentary knowledge of that at best but has faith in the Oracle’s power. Once they realize that Rey has made her mind up and any arguments are virtually useless, Rose fetches a cloak, and Jess promises to entertain Hux tonight. She takes a deep breath, staring at the rose-colored sunset and hoping, praying to the ancients of the island that this is going to be the right choice. Purples begin to dye the sky, as though Artemis is announcing her arrival by the color of high royalty. Rey takes another deep breath, recites the path she’s to take in her head, and leaps over the stone wall separating the Queen’s estate from the rest of the city. She takes a back path down to the caves where the oracle is rumored to live.

  
  
They whistle in the night, the wind running over the rocky formations fast enough to make a sound. People tell the tales of the ghosts that reside here, how the oracle makes anyone stupid enough to enter go insane. Rey knows for a fact those are all false. She’s visited the Oracle once, long ago. She doesn’t think about that trip much. 

  
“Come in, child, come in!” Maz is a smallish woman, skin worn from age and stress, her eyes wide and darting. She sees so many things at once, it’s a miracle she herself hasn’t succumbed to madness. She gestures to a small table with two chairs, herbs and a ready teapot laying on the table. “I had a feeling you would come to me today.” 

  
Rey sits, mentally decided at what point in time it would be considered polite to ask her question. She lets Maz pour her some tea and listens to her chatter about the raising prices of fish and cucumbers. Then she moves on to what a beautiful young woman Rey turned out to be, since the last time they’ve seen each other she was only s pint-sized whirlwind. Rey tries hard not to be embarrassed about her rash behavior all those years ago, when she had marched in, completely fearless, and demanded to know where her parents had gone. 

  
“But,” Maz says knowingly, “that’s not what you’re here for, is it? Come, child, out with the question.” 

  
Rey stares at the tea in her cup. “I’m sure you’ve heard what they’ve been saying about me.” She tries not to sound bitter about it,  unfortunately failing miserably. 

  
Maz hums, “I hear the whispers, here and there.” 

  
“It’s just,” Rey places her fingers on her temples and rubs, “A small army has shown up at my door. And they’re all demanding to at least see me, if not marry me, and Leia says I should give it a try, and Jess says they’ll all hurt me, and just everything is falling apart right now.”

  
  
“You want reassurance.” Maz says soberly, “Rey, you’re not going to get that from me.”

  
  
“I just need to know who I’m going to marry.” Rey is almost begging, “I’ll know, and then I won’t have to worry about it. I’ll send everyone away except him, or her, I’m not picky. Please help me, Maz, please.”

  
  
“Rey,” Mez places her wrinkled hands over Rey’s work-worn ones, “No one hears what they want to. You know that.” 

  
“I just need a clue. Or something I can use to identify my future spouse with.”

  
  
Maz sighs, resign settling over her features. “If that is really what you want, then I won’t refuse you.” She gets up, wandering through the kitchen and snatching random ingredients as she walks by them. “Finish the rest of your tea. Leave the leaves at the bottom.” 

  
Rey does as she orders. Maz mumbles something as she waves her hand over a bowl resting on the stone counter, walking back and dumping some of the leaves of Rey’s tea cup into the rest of the mixture. Maz swirls the black liquid, steam rising as tiny bubbles rise to the surface. She sets the bowl down in front of Rey, her reflection almost as clear as a mirror. 

  
“Hm.” Maz hums, poking her head over Rey’s shoulder and looking into the boiling bowl. “Interesting.” 

  
“What? Who is it?” Nervousness and excitement spark in her stomach, a sick and invigorating feeling. 

  
Maz’s face hesitates. She suddenly picks up the bowl and throws it against the wall, contents and all, clay shards and ooze flying everywhere. “You don’t want to know, child.” She warns, her ancient face wild with more panic that Rey has ever seen in her life. 

  
Now Rey is terrified, but she can’t let it go. “Please.” She doesn't’ know what else to say. Just the thought of the unknown is killing her. “Please, Maz.” 

  
Maz looks at her again, her amber eyes somber and resigned. “Oh, Rey,” she sighs, “You never can let anything go, can you? Very well, very well.” She sits back on her chair, folding her fingers together and thinking about how she is going to word the news. “I see a monster. You’re destined to marry a terrible monster.”

  
  
\---

  
  
Kylo Ren can’t see any semblance of beauty in this wench. She’s face down on her pillow, her arms wrapped around her covers protectively as though she feared someone would take them away. Her nightdress was almost sheer, the outlines of her body clinging to the thin material. He could clearly make out the shape of her body where it was unprotected from blankets, and he is ultimately unimpressed. Nothing of particular splendor. Ren is certain he’s slept with countless women far more fair than she.

  
  
He leans forward to study the part of her face that’s not buried from his site. It’s between a square and a circle, her lips thin and her eyebrows turned down into a frown. Her nose is pink, the edges of her eyes and cheeks are a deeper red. She’s been crying, he notices passively. Well, she most certainly is going to have much more to cry about shortly. 

  
The bull moans from where Ren dropped him in the courtyard, an ominous warning for what’s about to happen. 

  
Kylo Ren leans in close to her face, then trying once again to see what those people saw that is so alluring about her. One of his arrow’s tips slides out of a small hole in his quiver cover as he does this, the edge obsidian and sharp. You know what? If he squints his eyes really hard and is considerably drunk, he might, and this is a strong, loose usage of the word ‘might’, be slightly attracted to her. He shrugs it off and reaches for an arrow. 

  
His finger feels wet, he realizes dimly that he’s bleeding. With an almost sickening jolt, he notices that he has pricked his fingertip on the arrowhead, the lust elixir that was supposed to be for this whore now coursing through his own veins. 

  
She’s not a whore, he thinks to himself fiercely, looking again at her face as it dreams a peaceful sleep. The girl suddenly glows in the night, her every cell calling and pleading for him to take her, take her. He reaches over and touches the fabric on her thigh and does his best not to whimper. 

  
He can’t have her like this. His mind is clouded, his heart is hammering, he wants to rut into her and never allow her to leave his sight. But he’s aware enough to know that he can't take her like this. She might never forgive him, and the thought of his new goddess never forgiving him paralyzes his soul with fear. He spreads his wings and takes off into the night.  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOOOOOO it's me. I've seen a lot of Hades/Persephone Reylo work and I have to confess, I'm a whore for Hades/Persephone dynamics. But I was reading about the Eros and Psyche mythology and kind of saw the similarities there as well? 
> 
> And so I thought, "Well, who's stopping me?" and this came out. 
> 
> So this is an experiment to see if I could do it well, and I think I made enough connections for it to be cohesive? Right? I'm kind of proud of it and will definitely try to keep writing it in the future.
> 
> Anyway, please tell me what you, my trusty Reylo Fam, think. I really do appreciate other people's thoughts and critiques!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey’s mouth feels like something had crawled in it and died, a side effect of not taking care of her hygiene needs before going to bed. Her face felt dry and flaky from the long gone tears she had shed the night before. She feels like perhaps she is dying. Is she dying? Her heart is hammering horribly against her chest, like she’s hurt. But there’s no reason to feel this way, she tries to scold herself, the Oracle’s Other-Sight is notorious for being vague and useless, anyway. Her marriage to a- 

 

There’s the feeling again. Like she’s going to be sick. She walks over to the chamber pot laid behind her bed and dry heaves, unable to conjure up any substance to vomit. She looks up, seeing her reflection in the decorative bronze shield she keeps on her wall. It’s a reminder she has, to have a symbol of protection to wake up to. That her purpose in life is to protect those who need protecting, the sacred vow of an Naboo Queen. There’s nothing she can do about it, can she, but make sure that she doesn’t put her people in danger. 

 

Maybe she has ten years. Maybe she has a day. 

 

Rey stands, looking out the window, remembering how Queen Leia Amidala let her choose her own room, how she chose this one because she could see the city of Theed laid out, the rising sun washing the buildings in scarlet, as though an ancient Titan has fallen and now paints their land with their dying body. The wind is still, as though holding its breath for something to come. 

 

Might as well have breakfast before Rey decides to do anything rash. She does her hair in the quick makeshift version of her three hair buns after changing into a mid-shin length tunic, her lazy, not trying look. Slowly, while trying to form a list of things to do in her mind, she heads down to the kitchens where the cooks are sure to have something ready for her to eat. 

 

One, she does need to check up on how Hux is doing. She eyes her reflection in the fountain she passes warily, wondering if she could somehow convince Kaydel or Rose to do that. Two, she has to help the priestesses of the old gods with a new schoolyard behind their temple for orphans and newly immigrated families. She doesn’t have time to think about the steadily growing crowd of men that are shoving and hissing to get their way in. 

 

Rose is already in the kitchen, sitting down in the corner table with a young man Rey has never seen before. He is well dressed, with dark umber skin and short cropped springy hair. 

 

“Oh!” Rose jumps up and gestures to him, and he stands alongside her, “Rey, I would like you to meet Finn.” 

 

Rey looks at him carefully. “Hello, sir.” Scenarios from terrible to worse crowd into her mind. He’s using Rose to get to Rey. He wants to worm his way into the royal family. He’s a spy for Sparta, for the last crumbling senators of the Empire, for any one of the many nations whose slaves flee here for safety. 

 

“Your highness, hello!” He gives her a blinding smile. Surely no one evil is capable of smiling that purely. 

 

“Please, call me Rey.” She finds herself allowing. She sits down to eat with the two of them and finds herself growing loosening her apprehension about Finn the more he talks. He’s a merchant, partners with someone named Poe.

“One of the best pilots of our fleet,” Finn assures them, “He can sail a ship like no one else. Knows the ocean like he’s a fish.” 

 

Rey looks at how Rose hangs on his every word. The way Finn has not once talked over or interrupted either girl when they speak. While Rose and he go into a serious discussion over the correct way to price dyed wools, Rey quietly gathers her breakfast and excuses herself, glancing back at them deep in conversation before leaving the room. 

 

Finn doesn’t seem to be the worst Rose can do. Rey makes a mental note to keep an eye on him for any slip ups, though. After all, Leia can probably only bare one child marrying a monster. 

 

Rey has never once asked Leia about the son she’s rumored to have had. She figures that the child simply died as an infant or was stillborn, and Leia never had it in her to try again. Rey supposes that Leia wants to make a political statement by taking in four orphaned girls and priming them for leadership, to show that anyone deserves to be in the ruling caste. It certainly caused a ruckus at the time.

 

Kaydel and Jessika were both already adopted and living in the modest palace, both very welcoming to her. Kaydel loves to brush and do hair, and greatly appreciates to this day how Rey will sit quietly for her, since her other test subject, Jessika, hates it when people touch her for too long. Rose joined the family  soon after, completing the set. 

 

None of them have married yet. Kaydel is the only one who’s officially courting someone, though it appears that Rose has a blossoming romance with this merchant boy Finn. Jessika hates everyone but a select few, and probably will stay a maid til death. Rey has thought about marriage before, what she’d be willing to sacrifice and why. It’s a delicate balance, you can have either love or political gain. Rarely both. Rarely both political gain and the true, soul binding love she wishes for anyway. 

 

Sometimes Rey lays awake in the night and thinks. She thinks of the maids who whisper about their nights with their loved ones, how delightful and good it feels to be physical. Rey doesn’t think of herself as a pervert, but she tends to listen in so she knows what to expect. 

 

Deep in thought, she finds herself wandering over to the cliffside again. The air picks up the closer she gets to sea, a delightful breeze knocking some strands from her buns loose. She sets her small cheesecloth filled with bread and berries down, and settles herself on the edge of the cliff. The drop is long, anyone would die if they jumped off. With her legs dangling over the side, she’s hyper aware of her own mortality as the spray jumps high enough to lick her toes. Maybe that’s why Rey likes being here, it reminds her that nothing is permanent, not even the rocks that are steadily worn down by the waves.

 

She takes a bite of her bread, the perfect mix of dense and fluffy, chewing thoughtfully while staring into the hazy mist beyond the coral shelf that protects their people from armadas circling too close. 

 

_ Rey. _

 

She jumps, glancing around. No one behind her, certainly no one next to her. She could have sworn she heard someone call her name. 

 

_ Rey, don’t be afraid. _

 

Rey, of course, feels what one would consider a fair amount of fear given the situation. She scrambles back from the edge of the cliff, adrenaline erupting in her system. “Who are you? What do you want?” The voice sounds like it’s coming from  _ in front of her, _ which is impossible because unless you could fly… She wildly glances behind her once more to be sure. Nothing. She looks back to the edge of the cliff again and sees a figure obscured in black. 

 

There’s nothing else to do but stare at him. An ancient, primordial part of her from when her species lived in fear of the gods’ wrath chokes her, begs her to flee before this creature takes and uses her for something too terrible to even imagine. Before she can make use of the inhuman strength her body is producing her out of terror, the creature raises it’s arm and locks her muscles all in place. 

 

_ You don’t have to fear me. _ It says those words in her mind, loud and clear as a bell. Rey refuses to let the tears fighting to surface slip down her face. So this is how it is going to be, isn’t it. This is the monster who will take her away, with no goodbyes to girls closer to her than sisters or to Leia, a woman as good to her as any mother could be. She stops fighting the creature as it steps onto the cliffside, closer to her, far too close for her to be comfortable. The creature’s body is wrapped in a black coat, the edges of his silhouette seem almost too blurry but then too sharp, shifting in and out of reality. Its wearing a mask beneath its hood, keeping her from seeing any kind of features that she could use to figure out what it may be. 

 

It reaches a gloved hand out and brushes its fingers against her cheek.  _ Look at you, _ its voice doesn’t sound as terrifying as she had thought it would. Its words are mechanical, but its tone is somehow warm and inviting. Rey doesn’t even know how she would describe it to someone else, other than to say it was inhuman.  _ The most beautiful woman in the world. _

 

Those fucking rumors again. Would it ever be possible to remove herself from them? She opens her mouth to say ‘I’m really not’, but can’t seem to speak. She tries to communicate with her eyes by giving him a death glare, though her message doesn’t appear to be getting across. 

It holds its hand near the back of her head.  _ You’re afraid,  _ it whispers in her mind, its masked face so close to hers,  _ you shouldn’t be. _

 

_ Yet I am, you monster. _ Rey thinks desperately, trying to wriggle out of its grasp. The creature pauses, stone still, and Rey fears that it heard her thoughts.

 

The creature cups her head the way a lover might, and she feels her consciousness being pulled from her faster than she could fight. Everything falls black as she falls asleep in its arms. 

 

\---

 

When she wakes, she finds herself in a place greener and more alive than she could ever imagine on her own. She sits up, taking care to observe her surroundings in the hope to find a weapon, or perhaps to escape. In front of her, a small fountain gurgles cheerfully, the marble statue in the center probably some Greek or Roman hero that she doesn’t recognize in a pose of agony. The man is a naked, and dare she say, with a rather well endowed erection springing free from the fabric around his waist. His hands are held over his chest, bending back in what Rey can only assume is a greatly uncomfortable pose to be in. His soulless eyes stare up into the heavens as though cursing the gods for his predicament. It’s a rather odd selection for a centerpiece.

 

She turns and sees a large, chained up gate. The metal bars are far too thin for her to squeeze through, and the crossing wires are too high for her to climb up without assistance. So Rey needs to find rope long enough to throw over the wall that keeps her from escaping. She glances down at her tunic, but decides that, especially since she’s wearing a shorter one than usual, that there isn’t enough fabric to create even a makeshift rope. She turns back around to the statue, literally the first thing someone would see if they would walk through the gate. Beyond the fountain, a stone path leads up through the gardens, each tree and plant and flower Rey sees more foreign and exotic than the last. Up on what looks like to be the base of a mountain, Rey sees a villa, far larger than the one Leia has, made from black stone instead of the mainstream marble. 

 

That’s the most likely place her monster husband-to-be is. 

 

As Rey trudges up the hill to what very well may be her home, she tries to bargain with herself about her circumstances. What is marriage, anyway? An arcane form of chaining a woman down to be nothing but a baby making cow while the husband takes all her father’s money. Women are bought and traded for livestock and coin, it’s truly just slavery all wrapped up in a pretty bow to make it seem like something else. And yes, she’s destined to marry a monster, but what does that truly entail? Perhaps she can bargain with the beast. 

 

To keep her body from shutting down completely due to the panic that’s ripping through her with every step, she turns to look at the plants. A bush of purple flowers bigger than her hand flank the path, arches every few meters decorated with teardrop petals intertwined with their vines. This part of the garden is all greens, purples, and violets, each shade of petal so complimented by the next it feels like every leaf was somehow painted and placed with distinct purpose. 

 

Up ahead the colors change from purple and blue flowers to red and orange ones so suddenly Rey can see a visible line drawn between the two gardens. Rings of dark blood red stones circle the carefully groomed trees, and when Rey steps off the path to investigate what stone they are, she realizes that they are rubies. Rubies, the smallest one the size of her fist. 

 

She glances warily up at the villa, wondering what else lays in store for her, and continues onward. 

 

\---

 

Ren watches her until she moves to wake, then he leaves. Her first reaction of him leaves some things to be desired, that is for certain. Though he did learn something very important about her through her panicked state. 

 

_ You monster, _ she broadcasted for him to hear. He had reached up to the side of her head and prodded gently into her mind, finding it relatively unprotected but deep, like an iceberg, he was just scratching the surface. There is a power within her, something stronger than a thousand men and waiting to be woken. And to Kylo Ren, that makes her all the more appealing. Perhaps his goddess would be more willing to accept her if his Rey was on equal par as he. Maybe she would even make Rey a paladin as well. Just imagining what they could do together makes his mouth water with anticipation. 

 

However there is also the small detail of Rey- he loves thinking her name, it’s like honey in his mind- expressing a considerable amount of terror in his presence. There’s no need for her to fear him, he remembers clearly insisting that to her, however at the moment she was not to be reasoned with. That hurts him, that his beloved can’t even trust the first words out of his mouth. He has to figure out a way to fix that. 

 

The sound of his Anemoi servants jolt him out of his thoughts. He turns, watching the wind spirits giving the finishing touches in the banquet hall in preparation for his beloved’s arrival. Except he’s not really watching the wind spirits themselves, he’s watching the disembodied objects float around as they are being moved. Though Ren knows what they truly look like in their primordial forms from a forgotten, much less tamable Earth long before the first human drew breath, they’ve been reduced to a flittering breeze with no visible appearance. 

 

Which gives him an idea. 

 

\---

 

“Hello?” Rey calls, unsure if she should wait for permission to enter. All the bravery she had managed to muster up during the walk to this foreboding complex has shrank now that she’s face to face with the open entrance. What’s left of the sun is shining in, lighting the insides for her to see there’s no one within the atrium for her to see. She takes a hesitant step forward, between the ridged pillars, and tries calling out again, “Hello?”

 

Her voice echoes. No one answers. She begins to walk again, looking around for a trap, for something that might jump out at her. Nothing she can see, nothing she can hear. Not even the birds chirping in the garden could be heard up here. Slowly, cautiously, she makes her way deeper into the villa in the hopes she could find answers about her predicament. 

 

Kaydel will probably be the first to realize she’s gone, Rey decides grimly, the thought of her family making her sick again. Maybe they’ll think she went back to the oracle. Maybe they thought she died at the hands of the mystic cave ghosts. 

 

Something clatters loudly. Rey’s heart stops, she freezes, glances around, and bolts for the nearest pillar. Cold sweat drips down the side of her face, her breathing quickening as she resists the urge to scream, to cry, to do anything that might give away her position.

 

After a few seconds, she timidly peaks out of her hiding place. A plate is floating, all by itself, small pieces of fruit that are strewn across the floor are floating up and settling on it. Rey stares, mesmerized, as the last apple is neatly stacked along with the rest and the plate flutters away. One moment of debating is all it takes for Rey to quietly follow it. 

 

It leads her towards what appears to be a banquet hall, a large table covered in a feast sprawled out before her. Floating plates and goblets and pitchers float by, flower centerpieces being primped and clipped into perfection, all by what appears to be an army of invisible ghost servants. 

 

“My lady.” A masculine voice in front of her greets. 

 

“Oh, hello, um... sir?” Rey does her best not to crawl out of her skin. 

 

“Pleasure to bask in your glory, my lady. My name is Zephyr, and I am the head of Master Ren’s servants.”

 

“Master Ren? He is the owner of this, um, place?” 

 

“Yes, my lady.” Zephyr confirms, “We’ve been eagerly awaiting for your arrival. Master Ren will be eating dinner with you shortly, please have a seat.”

 

Without anything else to do, Rey sits in the chair that was pulled out for her, right by the head of the table. She folds and unfolds her hands on the tablecloth, doing her best to squash her fear down so she doesn’t throw up whatever she eats. The smell of food makes easier, her last meal was a couple of bites at breakfast, and now the sun is setting. Everything set on the table looks perfectly delectable, if several plates rather foreign. Even if her stomach keeps cramping, she’ll probably still try some of the things set out because wow,  _ wow, _ that one soup looks beyond tasty. A goblet is set before her and filled to the brim with wine. As soon as the pitcher floats away, she seizes the cup and downs its contents with a few gulps. The wine is sweet, not particularly strong in the slightest. It might take a few refillings to get the uncaring haze she’s looking for. 

 

Lanterns light while the sun makes its last dying breaths over the horizon, filling the room with a warmer glow. While Rey watches the pretty flickering of the torches, the chair next to her moves backwards on its own. Or, she muses, not on its own, by the invisible person pulling on it. Since its seated to her left and not to her right where the head chair is, she assumes that this person isn’t the head of the house.

 

Her belly is warm with her second cup of wine as the person settles, her mind already mellow and accepting to the situation at hand. Using her best political but kind Princess Voice, she turns to where she hopes the person’s face is and says, “Hello. I’m Rey.” Which, to her slightly drunk mind, seems like the best opener given the circumstances. 

 

Her introduction earns a chuckle, a warm, beautifully masculine sound. “Hello, Rey. Did you like the gardens?” His voice comes from a higher vantage point than she expected.

 

“Oh, yeah,” Rey nods, because even though she is basically a prisoner, it would be a filthy lie to claim the garden is anything but astounding, “I’ve never ever seen flowers like that before. They were amazing.” 

 

“I’m truly glad you enjoy it. You haven’t seen it all though, so perhaps I could give you a more detailed tour later if you are willing.” The invisible man offers, taking a plate from a passing servant and setting it in front of her.

 

“If you wish,” Rey mumbles, suddenly reminded that she may be stuck here for the rest of her mortal life, “If this Ren figure will let me.” 

 

The man beside her hums, “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be able to convince him. Which food would you like to try first?” 

 

Rey glances at the choices, completely overwhelmed, “I wouldn’t even know where to start. What are half of these dishes?” 

 

Her invisible man quickly explains which food is what; apparently a lot of these foods were from halfway around the world. There’s pork covered in a yellow fruit that’s so sweet and tangy Rey has to force herself to stop eating it. Chicken covered in a sauce that Rey is certain burned half her tastebuds off. Raw fish delicately placed on squares of small white grains. 

 

“I’m finished, this time I swear.” Rey waves her hand as her invisible man tries to feed her more, “I promise. I don’t think I can fit something else in my stomach.” She takes another unladylike swig of wine. 

 

“If you say so.” The ladle is set back onto the serving dish, “I’ll take you to your room, then. Would you like to take the scenic route?” 

 

Rey pouts at the reminder that she’s trapped here, “My own room? Am I sharing a room with Ren?” 

 

Rey can feel him cocking his head, “Only if you want to, I suppose.” 

 

They go out of the banquet hall to the quieter part of the villa. The halls are large and spacious, air freely moving throughout the home. Rey thinks that it’s probably nice and cool here during the summer. “Tell me about Ren. Is he your master, too?” 

 

“Not quite,” Her invisible man says, and is quiet for a moment. “You’re afraid of him.” 

 

“Well, yes. I was kidnapped, and am being held here in a place far away from my sisters and mother. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know how to get home, the gates to the outside are locked, so I’m effectively being held prisoner here.” Rey glares at the garden, lit blue in the moonlight, “I am scared. I am very scared of Ren.”

 

“I’m sure he doesn’t want you to be.” Her invisible man offers, “I don’t think Ren wants to rule over you with fear.”

 

“Well, then, what does he want?” Rey remembers the cliff, the mask and the robes. There were no eyes to look for mercy in. There was nothing to see but the abyss of darkness that surrounded him like a spirit. “The most beautiful woman in the world to wear as an ornament?” 

 

“Your companionship.” Her invisible man stepped towards her, “You’re so much more than your face, Rey.”

 

“You think so?” Rey muses, the hair standing up on the back of her neck. The fact that she can feel someone’s breath on her neck isn’t as terrible as she thought it would be. 

 

“I think so.” Her invisible man leads them to across the garden towards another wing of the villa. Flowers that hadn’t been blossoming during the day now open their bulbs, faint illumination beginning to bleed from the petals.

 

“But does Ren think so, is the true question.” Rey has to stop in awe of the glowing garden, looking above to the dim blue vines clinging to a weeping willow. She touches an unopened blossom at the edge if the vine, the petals opening up to reveal a jewel within. 

 

“I do think so.” Her invisible man says, picking the emerald from the center of the flower, “And I wish you wouldn’t fear me.” 

 

“What?” Rey’s heart stops, her outstretched hands cooling to the touch of the stone. 

 

“Rey.” Kylo Ren’s voice is deliciously low, male, and so, so gentle, “I don’t want you to be scared of me.” 

 

“Then why- then why-” Rey struggles to switch her emotions back to fear, now that her invisible man who she thought could be her friend turns out to be the very monster she’s forced to marry, “Why did you send a creature in a mask to kidnap me?” 

 

“I regret that decision.” He states firmly, “I truly do. I had no idea how much it would scare-”

 

“What did you think would happen!” Rey almost shouts, “Being  _ kidnapped _ and being  _ dumped gods know where.” _

 

“I’ll take you back.” Ren says quickly, trying to mollify her. 

 

“When.” Her voice is cold enough to send shivers down any hardened person’s spine. 

 

“In a month.” 

 

“A  _ month.” _

 

“The winds aren’t right for travel safely. For Zeus to be less aware of his domain the west wind and the north wind need to be blowing at the same time, the two directions confuse him a bit. And if _ Zeus  _  of all gods finds out that a woman who is rumored to be more beautiful than any in the universe is flying in the area he claims power over…” Ren trails off and lets her fill in the gory details. 

 

“Fine.” Rey puts her head in her hands. “Fine.” She feels an amount of defeat that she has not previously known. “But  _ swear _ to me that you will take me back in a month. Swear it… swear it on Styx.” 

 

Ren pauses. “I swear to you,” he says slowly, “that should you wish to return to your home in one month’s time, if it is safe for you, then I will ensure you get there.” 

 

“ _ On Styx.” _

 

“I swear it on Styx.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, once again. I am just blown the fuck away by how well everyone received fic. Thank you all so much for you kind and beautiful comments, you have no idea how much I truly appreciate them. 
> 
> So the second chapter is where the ball gets-a-rollin'! As I was writing this, I realized how close Eros and Psyche/Beauty and the Beast are. Monster boyfriend, weird servants, inviting feast? Sorceress/Aphrodite? Anyone?


	3. Chapter 3

“Why are you invisible?” Rey asks bluntly once she’s managed to calm her anger enough as to not spit at him.

 

“I have been told that I’m terrible and hideous to look at,” came his amused answer, “so I stay invisible not to terrify those I’m around.”

 

 _You’re destined to marry a terrible monster._ “I see.” Rey does her best to keep her voice steady, “What about all your servants?”

 

“Wind spirits. They are, for the most part, sentient air.”

 

She doesn’t answer as she follows him down the hall. They step through a beautifully decorated archway, to a sitting room furnished with some kind of chairs she’s never seen before. They are deeply pigmented red, almost like the Roman lounging chairs but far more plush. A wooden writing desk sits by the wall, round tables scattered around the room by the furniture, and one flat table in the center of the room that barely comes up to her shins. Shelves of books and scrolls are in the opposite corner of the desk, some of the covers faded completely. Rey walks into the adjacent smaller arch, to a bedroom more lavish than what Leia has in her palace.

 

The bed is low to the floor and wide, far wider than her other bed in Leia’s palace. The open balcony is closed off by sheer curtains, gently swishing in the low breeze. She can see the glowing garden from where she stands, something that she will most certainly appreciate during her stay. In the corner, the far side of the wall from her bed, there’s a private bath just for her. Wisps of steam rise from the pond, water from the fountain gurgling quietly.

 

“Do you like your room?” He sounds tentative when he asks.

 

Rey wants to take on a rude and uncaring attitude but finds that she can not be in the presence of this splendor. “It’s- wow, it’s beautiful.”

 

“That’s good.” Kylo Ren is right next to her; she can feel him when he accidentally brushes up against her arm while showing her the fountain. “You can bathe in the privacy of your own room. There’s a bell you can ring if you need a servant to assist you with anything. If you want to find me at any time, please do not hesitate to tell the servants to fetch me.”

 

Rey halfway doesn’t wish for him to go. Her mind feels bubbly and lightheaded from the wine that’s finally taking full effect on her. Feeling suddenly very tired from the day, her stomach full with food from the feast, she quietly walks over to the bed and buries for face into the mattress. “This is good. Thank you.”

 

“I’ll leave then.” He responds awkwardly. Rey gets the feeling he wants her to ask him to stay. She doesn’t. Footsteps that suggest bare feet make their way out of the bedroom, Rey suddenly realizing how utterly and terribly alone she is.

 

I won’t cry, she thinks to herself stubbornly. This situation isn’t the worst she’s ever been through, she had a full meal and a bed to sleep in. Her circumstances may be less than satisfactory, but remembering the cold, bitter nights alone when she was a child, this might as well be heaven, right? She rolls herself up and blankets and sleeps, letting the quiet bubbling of water relax and lull her into a sense of security.

 

\---

 

Kylo Ren listens to her breath even out as her consciousness slips from her grasp. He walked out of her bedroom and now sits against the wall separating him from her, unable to move far from his beloved. The stone is cold on his hot and love-fevered skin, almost but not quite helping to numb the pull he feels towards her.

 

Guilt eats at him. He doesn’t wish to lie to Rey ever, but telling her that Zeus is always watching his realm was just a tiny little fib that could be true on the correct day. More likely than not, though, Zeus is probably rolling in whatever bed he saw fit for the moment while Hera searches for him. Kylo doubts Zeus knows what the Four Winds do half of the time, leaving them to figure out how to rule best they can while he rapes and pillages whatever he pleases.

 

Still, it was the only way to calm her down. Kylo figures that if he can’t woo her in the single month he allowed himself, then he is undeserving of his title. Kylo Ren, Paladin of Aphrodite, the God of Eros. Though he genuinely wants to earn her, a part of him, the darker part that belongs to Aphrodite only, whispers how easy it would be to prick her with his love arrows and be over with it. She would be his.

 

But the lighter side of him that is always fighting for the surface ponders what would happen if she ever got access to the antidote. Rey is smart, that much is obvious to even a child wandering the street in passing. Her political prowess and ability to navigate the dangerous world of royalty make her a force to be reckoned with. If he pricked her with an arrow, she would love him unconditionally the way he loves her, not even realizing that he made her have those feelings. Victims of his love arrows aren’t aware of their plight. But should they be somehow exposed to the antidote, the artificial love dies as though it never happened and they will remember how they were poisoned with perfect clarity. One moment, while he is away on duty, will be all it takes for her to disappear forever.

 

So no, piercing her heart with his poisoned arrows will not guarantee to keep her by his side for eternity. And besides, even he, a Paladin of Aphrodite that the even the gods fear, wants to experience authentic, requited, and soul-shattering love that the poets of old write ballads of. He wants her to crawl inside of him, to see parts of him that no other person, not even his Aphrodite have seen. He wants her to consume him like a starving animal. To lay her down and learn her body, mapping where she whimpers in ecstasy and timing how long she’ll accept being teased.

 

He falls asleep, careful to hold his aura of invisibility lest she wakes up before him. He’s never tried holding onto a spell for this long, before, but choosing between restless sleep and leaving his beautiful Rey’s room is an easy decision to make.

 

\---

 

Everything is blurry, hazy, in a way that makes her feel like she’s once again drunk, shapes fuzzy and dark and just out of clarity. She sits up on the bed, twisting to place her feet down on the cool stone of the floor. Something is distinctly off about her body. Rey’s insides feel hot, not in the way she’s used to before she becomes sick. This heat is soft. Needy.

 

“Rey.” He says her name like it’s a word of worship, as if he’s a sinner begging for his goddess.

 

“What’s wrong with me?” She asks, her mouth quivering, “Why am I feeling this?”

 

His body is sharper than the rest of her vision, the only thing she can see without a headache. He stands at the foot of her bed, a form she has yet to see but knows it’s his. She can’t focus on him for long, before the edges of his shape fizz out and the area between her eyes feel like she’s sticking knives into it. His hands are big; when they touch her knees, they cover them completely. He kneels in front of her in the very picture of subjugation, gently guiding her legs apart so he can what’s wrong with her.

 

“I could help, if you let me.” It’s a statement that leaves no reason to believe otherwise. Something between her legs becomes slick with anticipation.

 

“You’ll make it go away?” Rey asks, her voice small. Does she even want this feeling to go away? It is not entirely unpleasant, but she doesn’t know how to handle it by herself. She has felt arousal before, she’s touched herself before, but this is so much more, so terribly strong she feels she will die.

 

“I’ll make it go away.” He confirms, only touching her knees, her sleeping dress hiked up around her waist. She doesn’t feel exposed with him. He says he’ll help her, her fuzzy and addled mind believes him.

 

“Please,” She implores, her back arching from the shivers dancing along her spine.

 

Wordlessly, he lifts the rest of her skirt out of the way, folding it over her belly and chest. He runs a single finger from her ribcage to the very end of her waist where her body dips down into her feminine parts. She sucks in a breathy whine, “Please.”

 

“Patience.” His voice is raspier than before, as though disbelief is making him hoarse. “Let me worship you.”

 

Rey whimpers when he lifts one of her legs up, slipping it onto his shoulder until the crook of her knee is firmly resting beside his neck. He leans towards her and breathes deeply, as though memorizing her scent, his eyes flickering to hers in an attempt to find any reluctance. Rey has none. Slowly, as if she is an injured animal he doesn’t want to startle, he brushes his lips against her core in a kiss.

 

The unexpected pleasure makes her buck. She whimpers again, the heat from her body leaving her fingers and her toes, all bleeding into the area below her waist. His tongue lashes out to catch her arousal, licking a stripe up her slit to taste her in full. Rey’s vision somehow goes even more than it already has, she has to lay her back against the bed otherwise she fears she will faint. One of her hands blindly finds his raven locks, tangling her fingers with him in an effort to anchor herself.

 

He kisses her core again, an open mouth kiss that is more sucking than anything else. He catches her nub between those sinful lips and runs his tongue over it, again and again and again until Rey can’t do anything of sob with ecstasy, unable to focus on nothing else but this creature on his knees to please her. His teeth grind against her red and swollen skin while he sucks wildly with abandon, his ministrations teetering precariously on the edge of pain and pleasure. Rey brings her other leg up to also wrap around his shoulder and neck, linking her feet together to lock herself again his face.

 

“Please.” She thinks she is begging. She’s not sure what constitutes as begging in this situation, but she can’t muster up the effort to pretend as though she cares.

 

The way he grabs her with his mouth ensures she won’t get a verbal answer, though she manages to sit back up to watch the way his eyes stare devotedly into hers. It’s almost as though he finds pleasure in merely touching her. He sucks harder, wrapping his arms around her waist in an effort to better control her writhing body, nodding his head up and down to create more friction between her pussy and his face.

 

She comes, harder than she’s ever managed on her own. She throws her body back and cries out, convulsing so hard she thinks she may die. Her insides tighten and clench almost painfully, hot and ready cum slipping out of her cunt then in more waves than usual. It’s as if her body senses these movements aren’t her own, trying to make up for lost time by hitting her harder than ever before.

 

He drinks her nectar, using his tongue to swipe mouthfuls to swallow, diving into her like a starving animal. Once he’s satisfied that he has cleaned out her pussy, her thighs, and any drops of cum that might have dripped onto the edge of her bed, he pulls back, a satisfied and dazed look on his face. He sways on his knees; his eyes almost closed while he licks and smacks his lips. His nose, mouth, cheeks, and chin are filthy with her, something that almost impossibly sparks her core once again with arousal.

 

“Did that help?” He asks, knowing very well the answer but wanting to hear it come for her.

 

“More,” Rey demands, having a taste of paradise and not yet wanting it to slip through her fingers. Part of her is almost aware that this is a dream, that the things she does here are of no consequence. “More. Please.”

 

The moonlight strikes his face when he stands, she can suddenly see it with beautiful clarity. He’s gorgeous, pointed ears peeking from his crown of black hair. His eyes are made to be a predator’s but lack the bloodthirsty instinct. He was just on his knees for her, licking her like a slave. Rey knows if she asks, he’ll do it again. Bow to her will. Worship her body with his tongue and ravish her with his eyes.

 

Nudity of both genders is something Rey is at least generally familiar with. Even with the idealized body types on display to her at all times in paintings and statues, she’s well aware that the man who stands before her is better structured than the average male. His weeping cock is pointing at the ceiling, having been deprived of any contact while he pleasured her. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything to influence any decision she makes. He lets her stare at his manhood with open curiosity.

 

“Please.” She parts her legs, letting him give her pussy the same scrutiny she gave him, “I want you. Please.”

 

His gaze flickers up to her. “Say that again.”

 

She lets out a shuddering breath, “I want you.”

 

He closes the distance between them, laying himself on top of her, letting his cock rest against her stomach while he braces himself on his arms. Rey can smell what is left of her cum on his face. His eyes are wild, startling, searching hers for something she’s not sure she can give him. Once more, he orders, “Say it. Again.”

 

So she does, more forceful this time. “I want you.”

 

His body shutters, Rey can feel his cock twitching with joy. Helping her sit up, he pulls her dress off so he can see the rest of her body, his eyes wide with awe as he traces a path from the valley of her breasts to the top of her stomach with his finger. Her breasts peak in the fresh night air, goosebumps dancing up and down the flesh of her arms.

 

“You’re beautiful.” He leans back down, kissing her for the first time on the lips, his tongue just as deft and pleasurable here as between her thighs. He sucks at her lower lip to makes sure it’s swollen before darting into her mouth, rubbing, teasing. She tastes something not unpleasantly tangy.

 

Breaking the kiss so he can more easily find her clit with his index finger, he makes those clever little circles where he knows she’ll keen for him. Impatient, she makes a grab for his cock. Her hands are clumsy, she knows, however, he makes no complaint while she pumps his erection in her tiny hands. She does her best to massage it, going by the subtle hisses of pleasure he makes when her fingers do something especially pleasurable. He keeps up with rubbing her cunt, dipping two fingers into her wetness.

 

He uses his other hand to help guide her to touch him. He shows her the tender vein on the underside, how the area just before his balls is extra sensitive. She lets a drop of precum fall onto one of her fingers, bringing it up to her mouth experimentally. His mouth twitches as she tastes, the precum bitter but unmistakably male. She resumes holding his cock in her hands, trying different ways to wrap her fingers around his thickness, arranging them to create different pressures as she moved from base to tip.

 

Rey finds she likes how he helplessly humps into her hand, as though he’s reduced to something less than a man by her touch. A part of her thinks that she shouldn’t enjoy that, yet she does. When he cums, it’s ribbons of white pooling onto her stomach, different than the clear liquid that comes out of her. His mouth finds hers in an exhausted, clumsy kiss, one that she meets with equal eagerness. His cock is raising once more, and Rey is ready for it, ready for it to be thrust between her hips and-

 

Rey wakes.

 

At first, the disappointment is almost too much for her to bear. The sticky heat is still pulsing in her waist, her thighs damp with her arousal. Her nightdress had hiked its way up around her chest, her blankets laying on the floor as though kicked wildly away in haste. She glances down at her stomach but finds the skin clean. She feels a small amount of relief.

 

It was just a dream. It was all just a dream. Shame fills her body, after all, she just had a wild fantasy about a made up man her sex-deprived mind summoned. That has to be a new kind of rock bottom for her. She stretches her arms, eyeing the small fountain in the corner of her room, the bathtub just for her use. She glances down at her thighs, the stickiness not disappearing like she hoped it would.

 

She walks over to the fountain, touching a toe into the water. It’s warm. She slips her nightdress over her head and sets it to the side, letting her body sink under the heat of the pool. Water pours from a place in the wall, out of the mouth of what looks to be a carved hydra head. It stares at out her room blankly, its jeweled eyes too alive for her liking. Rey turns to find a block of pumice for scrubbing feet, a jar of oils for after the bath, and a clean pile of blue fabric where she had just set her nightdress.

Invisible servants. The whole situation is incredibly unsettling, adding people that could be watching her at any time into the mix and the desire to go home increases threefold. She folds herself into the water so that only her nose and eyes are on the surface, as though that would protect her body from view. She’ll have to have a word with Kylo Ren today about this. That is, if he’s not in the room with her already.

 

She stops bathing when she’s too hungry to think of anything else. Her fingers and toes are wrinkled, her skin soft to the touch. She’s certain that the evidence of the night is gone, that the scent of her sex has washed away with the hours spent in the water. Slowly, she stretches, grabbing a stretch of linen to dry herself off with. Once she’s dressed, she heads out of her room without shoes, trying to remember which way to the banquet hall.

 

Heading across the garden to the main building, she catches a whiff of food over the almost overpowering smell of summer in the garden. Birds are chirping, dancing about in the trees to find a mate. The bees are collecting pollen to make their honey, their bodies bumbling about as they fly, their wings far too small for their big bodies. Rey wonders if Kylo Ren has a beekeeper.

 

The sounds of servants trimming the hedges jolt her out of her thoughts. Sheers moving with no visible bodies snip at branches growing out of place. A single flower floats over to her, which she takes graciously because she doesn’t want to seem rude. “Thank you.” She manages to get out, fighting her instinct to either punch the air in front of her or flee back to her room. She doesn’t want to seem like a rude house guest.

 

“You’re welcome.” The voice is familiar, the same honeyed whisper that caressed her into the late night. She finds herself wanting to cross her legs together in a mix of arousal and shame to hide how he affects her.

 

“Oh, Master Ren.” She tries to sound more enthusiastic but finds she can’t muster the energy to pretend to be a gracious kidnapped victim. “Hello.”

 

“Please call me Kylo. I do not wish to lord over you, Rey.”

 

“So you keep saying.” She places the bright orange flower’s stem behind her ear, “I have yet to see much evidence of that besides your words.”

 

He pauses, and for a moment Rey thinks that perhaps he’s left her in the middle of the gardens by herself. “Would you like some breakfast?”

 

“Sure,” Rey mutters, hating how mentioning food always disarms her very being. Food was such a precious commodity to her that wasting it even now makes her feel sick. Leia has always let the servants bring home the untouched leftovers from her banquets, Rey wonders if Kylo does the same.

 

She can’t really follow him because she can’t even see where he is, so Rey heads in the direction which she assumes is the banquet hall, each step more assured the more she remembers from the previous night. The table is laid out with just as much food as yesterday’s dinner, and just as exotically unknown to her. A few dishes appear familiar, but once again, Kylo is explaining to her the different fruits and grains she sees.

 

“The natives call it a ‘papaya.’” He says about a green-skinned fruit with bright orange insides.

 

“Pap-aya.” Rey echoes, taking a bite. “Where is it from?”

 

“Far away. Further than the empire’s reaches while they were at their peak.”

 

“Impossible.” Rey licks the juice from her fingers, “They conquered the whole world.”

 

“I’m sure they’d like you to think that.” Kylo chuckles, “But the whole world is so much bigger than most mortals know. There’s a whole continent your people don’t even know exists across the ocean.”

 

Rey can barely fathom another land mass the size of the known world just across the Atlantic. “Are there people there?”

 

“Yes, many. Their cultures are so very different than the ones you know. If you visited them, you would feel alienated.”

 

Still, Rey’s interest is piqued. “Would you- I mean, if we get the chance and you aren’t busy, would it be possible to visit them?”

 

“I- yes. I would love to show you.” His voice is surprised, her enthusiasm on the topic rather unexpected. “If we get the chance.

 

“And if Zeus isn’t watching,” Rey mumbles sullenly. Why does the giant dick in the sky have to be such a killjoy?

 

Rey finishes her breakfast in sullen silence, the memories of the dream coming back despite how the moment was somewhat inopportune for her. Whenever he speaks, she remembers how that same voice begged her to say that she wanted him. When he has her hold out her hands for another fruit and their fingers brush, she remembers her clit being rubbed until she couldn’t breathe. She can’t even see him, and every action he makes feels like its made for sex. She wonders what would happen if she touched every inch of his invisible body, seeing if her imagination conjured up something accurate. She wants to do that right now, actually.

 

“Rey?”

 

“Yes?” She nearly jumps out of her skin, face hot and embarrassed.

 

“Are you alright?” Kylo asks, “Did you have something that doesn’t agree with you?”

 

“No- it’s all marvelous. I’m just… I’m just not feeling very well.”

 

“Oh. Is there anything I can do to help?” He asks, hopefully wholly unaware of her true plight.

 

“I just- I think I need to take a walk. Fresh air.” Rey stands, feeling slightly wobbly. She feels a large hand press up against her back to offer support.

 

“Well, why don’t you let me help you? How about I show you the rest of the gardens like I promised last night. Would you like that?”

 

She’d like that hand in some less savory places. “Um, sure. Yeah, thank you.”

 

“Just this way, then.” He leads her outside where anything could happen, and no one would know. Or maybe a lot of invisible servants may know. Rey is reminded of that conversation she wanted to have.

 

“So, uh, your servants are all rather invisible.” Great start.

 

“Yes.”

 

“It’s just, even back in Leia’s palace, I didn’t like servants bustling around in my room. I like being alone, and calling servants when I need them. I was taking a bath today and I turn around and see my stuff, um, thanks for the dress by the way, and I know they're just helpful, but I would like my need for privacy to be respected. Please.”

 

“Of course.” He agrees as soon as she stops talking, “I’ll tell them only to come when called, and to leave anything outside of your bedroom but in your living area. Is that acceptable?”

 

“Yes,” Relief fills her. She wasn’t sure if this would be an argument or not, since she doesn’t know Kylo at all, really. Her experience with foreign relations taught her that senators and others of high power and money tend to be ridiculously particular about the most inconsequential of things. Maybe it’s just her past of being a street rat, but Rey likes to think she’s rather easy going.

"If you would follow me, I think you would enjoy the plants that grow in the lower part of the Atlantica Continent, the seeds are very bitter but the natives make it into a type of tea. They use the pods as currency and worship the tree-" He leads her further into the garden.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! This is an absolute pleasure to write. I'm trying to introduce more plot, but it's high time for there to be some smut here. Geez. It's been a whole chapter without it. Thanks for everyone's kudos and comments!
> 
> I feed off of people's approval.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey stares out the side of the balcony. It’s been three days. Three days where she’s woken up, soaked in the water, gone to breakfast, and toured the estate. Kylo tries his best to accommodate her. He often never leaves her side, talks to her like a person. Most of  the men she meets outside the palace she has to fight for respect, but Kylo Ren offers it to her freely. Well, she means, except for the one time he sent that monster to fetch her. He  _ did _ say he regrets scaring her, and this is a time period where kidnapping your future wife is quite normal. 

 

She spent almost all night telling him of her home until her voice became raw. He listened intently, sitting in the lounging chair in front of her, asking her questions every now and then. After a few goblets of wine, she wanted to ask him if she could sit closer yet didn’t out of embarrassment. 

 

Before he went to bed, he told her he has a job to do today. That she would be alone and he hoped that would be alright. It isn’t, she finds herself missing his presence, which has been the only constant thing in the turmoil her life has become. And maybe a part of her despises him, but he doesn’t actually seem to be a monster. Every time she’s brushed up against him, she has not felt any stray appendages, or scales, or anything else that might suggest he’s not human. 

 

And does it  _ really _ matter if he’s human or not? He’s kind. He treats her with the respect she’s always though would have to be sacrificed with marriage. She thinks of all the men she could marry; surely he’s not the worst? 

 

She goes back to her bed and wraps herself in the blankets. For the first time, she wishes for another body to curl up against in her bed. 

 

\---

 

“Something is wrong.” Aphrodite is glaring at him from across the room, atop her throne. Today her skin is a milky white, her waist-length hair an unnatural ivory. Her eyes are violet and her lips are tinted blue. False veins are visible along her chest and neck, along her wrists and hands. Her robes are deep violet, the color of royalty far more vibrant against her pale skin than any other form. 

 

“What do you mean, my goddess?” He looks up at her from his usual pre-mission groveling. 

 

She stands, taking a step down towards him. “You reek of affection, but not for me. Who is this woman who dares take your attention from where it belongs?” 

 

“No one, majesty. You will always take up all of my mind. This I swear.” Kylo Ren is a dirty, filthy liar. He should feel guilt at pushing these disgusting untruths at his goddess, but Rey’s safety takes first priority. 

 

“Hm.” She looks him up and down, tapping her finger against her chin, “I suppose you  _ do _ get these fascinations sometimes. I don’t really mind.” She cocks her head, her smile growing sinister. “Do your job, then come get your reward.” 

 

“What would you have me do?” 

 

She explains to him in great detail about two kings who despise each other. “I just think it would be  _ so _ dreamy if their sons fall in love together. Can you even imagine?” Her giggle is giddy as she stares out the window. “The mutual pining. The scandal.  _ The sex.” _ She turns to him, “I bet they’ll let us join them.” 

 

He doesn’t let any flicker of emotion show on his face. “Their names?” 

 

Aphrodite sees she’s not going to get a rise out of him today. She tells him their names and locations, watching him fly away to do his work. If he doesn’t come to collect his reward, she’ll know if he’s too infatuated with his new toy and needs an intervention. The intervention, of course, consists of her finding the toy and killing it. She watches his perfect body vanish over the horizon. 

 

\---

 

Kylo Ren knows that if he doesn’t return to sleep with her, Aphrodite will know there’s something wrong. He’s never missed out on a chance to let her use him like an object, and if he shows any signs of pulling away she’ll grow quite concerned. And that concern will lead her right up to Rey, and he can’t have that.

 

It doesn’t really make him sick to the stomach. It’s just another necessity to keep his lover safe.

 

\---

 

He’s glad that he’s already established his invisibility. He’d hate to have Rey look at his disheveled appearance, hair tousled,  clothes askew (why is he even wearing clothes? He’s invisible) and face red from exertion. Aphrodite has a way of marking people as hers. He is well and thoroughly fucked, and it would clearly show. He doesn’t feel much shame at the act itself, but Rey is the type of person to be disturbed by it. 

 

She senses him the moment he swoops upon her balcony. It’s night, the moon and stars bright enough to see her. Her figure is clearly outlined in her thin sleeping dress, her eyes lined with dark crescents. She’s been staying up all night for his return, he realizes with glee. She wanted to greet him. 

 

Rey is holding a scroll in her hands, an old philosophy poem written by someone she would have never heard of. It’s not even written in her spoken tongue, so she is probably just admiring the calligraphy and pictures. 

 

“You’re back.” Her voice isn’t hysterical with excitement. However, she isn’t showing any more disdain so that must count for something. 

 

“I’m sorry to have left you.” He says, taking a step towards her. He respects her space and desperately hopes she’ll come to him on her own. 

 

“You must have an interesting job to have this splendor. Your head servant said you work for someone important but didn’t say who.” She shifts on her feet before adding somewhat sheepishly, “I thought I asked him, but it took me a few minutes to realize that he had thrown off and that I was speaking to no one.”

 

Kylo’s lips quirk up into a grin. “That happens even to me sometimes.” 

 

There’s a moment of silence, before Rey hesitantly fills it. “Would you- I mean, if you aren’t tired, would you like to sit with me in the living area?” Her hands clasping nervously in front of her, her eyes looking slightly just below his. The fact that she’s making an effort to reach out turns his blood to joy. 

 

“I would- I would love to. Shall I call a servant to bring us something to drink?” Kylo asks, barely keeping himself from turning into a stuttering fool. Rey has just asked to spend time with him.  _ Rey just asked to spend time. With him.  _

 

“Wine please. Um, this way.” She walks in the direction of her living room. He follows close enough to smell the perfume the servants must have given her,  a concoction of flowers from his garden. The scent is fresh and vivid, as though she rolled in his flower beds before he came. It makes her seem more alive, more human than before. 

 

Her hair is tied up in three hasty buns, baby hairs that refuse to grow fly free, adding a kind of endearing wildness to her appearance. Her chiton is longer than the one she wore when he first retrieved her, the fabric a light, hazy blue as though touched by the early morning sky. Her body has been carefully groomed, her skin soft from time spent in the bath. Kylo’s glad to see that she’s been taking care of herself.

 

They seat themselves, Rey settling in the lounge chair not quite next to him, but not across from him. Her fingers carefully fold and unfold themselves, the only sign of her nervousness besides her carefully expressionless face. When the servant comes with a wine tray, Rey thanks and dismisses them, almost as though she’s already made herself home. Kylo feels their presence retreat in obedience, leaving the two of them alone. 

 

Rey sets the goblet in front of him, taking the small pitcher and pouring the wine to the prim. The liquid is dark, almost a purple color, and smells like the sweet berries that grow in the forest outside the courtyard. He takes it and sips, then notices Rey staring at him with her eyes narrowed, a smile fighting her lips. 

 

“What’s so funny?” He asks, brows furrowed. 

 

“Forgive me, it’s just that,” her fingers weave themselves together again, “seeing a goblet float around in the air, I can see you drinking it, but I can’t see  _ you. _ It’s… almost disconcerting.” 

 

“I see.” He watches her begin to pick at her nails, wishing he didn’t put so much stress on her. “It must be bizarre for you, Rey. I’m sorry.” 

 

She pours her own goblet and drinks half of it in a few gulps. “Would you…” She takes a deep breath,  trying to collect her thoughts, “...you say that you stay invisible on purpose. Would you please let me see you? Please?” 

 

He wants it. He wants it so bad he feels the spell slipping from his fingertips at the end of her sentence. Then he remembers the marks that Aphrodite sucked onto his skin and he feels something he’s never felt before; shame. It burns inside him, harming him almost physically as though he’s being burned alive. If she saw them, she would know. He has been working tooth and nail for her not to look at him with fear, the thought of her looking at him with disgust had not even crossed his mind. No, it would be _ better _ to be burned alive than to let her see what he does, how he serves his goddess. 

 

At first he thought he might reveal himself to her, later on once she grew used to him. But as he sits in silence, deliberating over her request, he realizes that it might be better if she never sees his flesh, ever. Especially since Aphrodite isn’t one to just stop at someone’s behest. She’ll keep sucking hickeys into his skin even if he begs her to stop.  _ Especially _ if he begs her to stop. 

 

“I can’t, Rey,” Kylo’s voice is soft, filled to the brim with regret. “This isn’t a way to torture you, I swear it. But please,  _ please  _ promise me you’ll never try to look upon my true face.” 

 

“Why not?” Rey asks, “It- it wouldn’t scare me. I know you. You aren’t terrifying; you are kind. And you said that you are only this way because people are-”

 

“It’s not that simple. I say that… because it’s less painful than reality. And I didn’t think you would stay long enough to care.” He takes another sip of wine. “I’m sorry, Rey. But I can’t. Please don’t bring it up again.” 

 

She bites at the skin around her nails, going from one to the other in quick succession. “I won’t.” She mumbles hastily, already pouring herself another goblet of wine with one hand. 

 

Kylo relaxes, letting out a sigh. “My intention was not to scare you.” He thinks for a moment, then comes to a decent compromise. He stands, allowing himself a brief moment to stretch before taking the one step needed to close the distance between them. Kneeling slowly, as to not startle her, he reaches for her frantically folding hands.

 

“What are you doing?” Her voice is high pitched with nervousness. Rey is no stranger to the ill ways of man; she prays to an old forgotten god that Kylo isn’t the same. 

 

“Don’t fret,” he says quietly, “I would never make you do something you wish not to.” 

 

Slowly, as to not startle her, he lowers her hands to his face. Her fingertips have had calluses before, long removed from sudden exposure to luxury. Her nails gently run against his flesh, oh what he would give to have them rake down his back with her legs wrapped around his waist. 

 

“You feel like a man.” Like any other man she might see on the street. His face, she feels, is sharp and angular. His skin is almost absurdly smooth, as though he was carefully molded from clay. He has two eyes on his face, where eyes on a human should be, and a nose down the center between them. At her words, his lips tug upwards into a smile. 

 

“A handsome man?” He asks, almost teasingly. His chest is tightening, blood thrumming under his skin so loud he’s certain Zeus can hear. 

 

“Well...  a man for sure.” Rey tries to respond in kind, gauging his reaction. He laughs, and it is a beautiful sound that warms even her bones. She touches the strong muscles of his neck, pulls at the strands of hair to test for length. She touches his earlobes, then the shells, and notices something different. “Your ears are pointed at the ends.” 

 

“Yes.” He doesn’t deny. 

 

She places her hands on his shoulders, surprised to feel the raw muscle that curves into his arms. Stopping there, because she fears going too far. 

 

“You are welcome to continue.” 

 

 Rey traces the contours of his collarbone, then down the middle of his chest. Her face is red and hot with embarrassment as her hand slips and accidentally brushes against his breast. “Sorry.”

 

His hands meet hers before she can pull away. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.” Her fingers braced against the center of his chest, his mouth so very close to the edge of her ear. When did he get there? Her brain is suddenly tangled together, her thoughts so spastic and out of order, incoherent to even herself. He presses a single kiss on the side of her neck, an action so soft and chaste Rey could believe it never happened until he did it again, nearer to her ear. 

 

“Is that okay?” Kylo’s voice is warm, accepting whatever her answer is before she gives it. 

 

“Please.” She can barely make sense of her own words, except that when she touches the formless man in front of her, she feels at home. 

 

“Please what?” He breathes in her ear, her insides turning into putty. The edges of her tunic tug forward, as though preparing for her request. 

 

Rey leans back, aiming her head at where she hopes his is, and leans in. His mouth meets hers, his arms still at her sides as though leaving room for her to change her mind. When she and him are joined like this, she can reach out to something inside of him. A primordial thing, an energy that she knows existed before her world did. Kylo is bursting at the seams with it, a living thing that she can reach out towards with her own mind-

 

And it’s painful. It burns. It’s millions of souls before him, their souls compiling a power that any god would fear. Rey suddenly realizes that this man, Kylo Ren, a person she will marry is a vessel to something ancient and terrifying. She breaks the kiss in shock, her body vibrating with what she grazed against. Kylo is frozen against her. 

 

“Are you- Oh, Rey, did you? Can you speak?” He stammers, something he’s never done. Always respectful, always dignified. 

 

“What was that?” Her throat is almost burned. 

 

She’s not dead. She touched a part of his power, and she’s not reduced to ashes. Kylo knew that his Rey was extraordinary, but this is something on a whole new level of terrifying, astounding, and beautiful. 

 

“A slice of my essence. My… abilities.” What made him so attractive to Aphrodite, his bloodline, this power that flows through his clan. Sometimes he sees it as a curse, though as he stares into his beloved’s eyes, glittering from wine, he sees it as something worth worshipping. 

 

“How do you manage?” She’s so soft, so innocent. She finds his hair, brushing it from his face, asking, “How can you stay sane? It... It hurts so terribly.” 

 

“Rey.” He will bow down before her and let her consume his very being. 

 

“Kylo Ren.” Her arms cling around his neck, face almost buried in the crook of his neck. “Who are you?” 

 

He wants to tell her. Every part of his soul is screaming for her, every cell in his body is prepared to gut himself if she asks. Telling her, though. Telling her about Aphrodite, about how he serves her. To tell Rey, his beautiful innocent girl, who has never been with another, that he lets himself be fucked by a goddess and how  at one point  _ he liked it. _ No, that is something he cannot do. 

 

“I am a creature of dark and light, Rey. I am what people whisper about in fear when huddled together.” He places a kiss on her forehead, “I serve the New Gods, doing as they see fit.” His mouth trails down, kissing both her eyes and cheeks, “But this I swear, Rey, you will never want for anything should you choose to have me. I will be your servant, your slave, your husband, until you turn me away. For you I will split mountains to give you diamonds the size of pomegranates, I would part seas to retrieve pearls too heavy for you to wear.” 

 

“Do you love me?” Rey interrupts, her tone frail, breathless. 

 

“I- yes- yes.” He kisses her on her mouth. “I love you. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever-” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, “I love you.” 

 

Waiting a few moments before replying, she buries her face in his chest. She thinks about her fate, the prophecy of her marriage dangling in front of her mockingly. His intent is true, this she can sense from him. And though there’s something that almost feels not right with his declaration of love, Rey decides that there isn’t a better option for her. The Oracle never specified the monster, did she? She can choose to marry this self proclaimed creature right now, or she can marry someone else that could be just as worse. 

 

Her legs find his waist, her knees bending as she pulls him towards her. “Kylo Ren, I will have you.”

 

His mouth is on hers against, almost cutting her air off in a kiss filled to the brim with relief and adoration. His arms are around her, almost entirely engulfing her body. Tongue gently prodding against her mouth, he lifts her up effortlessly and hastily takes her to her bed. On the way there, Rey clumsily tries to reciprocate his ministrations, immediately becoming embarrassed that she can’t. 

 

The mattress is plush against her back, her tunic slipping from her shoulders. “May I?” The invisible hands wrap around the clasps that keep her body covered. 

 

“Please do.” 

 

Her dress folds open, revealing her body to him. She wishes that she could see him the way he sees her, basking in the beauty of another naked body. His muscles are hard against her skin, his invisible physique in seemingly excellent condition. Kylo pressed his mouth against hers, then her jawline, her neck, and up to her ear. “Tell me what you want me to do.” His tone sultry, his breath hot on her neck.

 

“I don’t- I don’t know.” Her voice is confused, quiet. He’s reminded that she’s inexperienced when it came to lovers, and he finds himself somewhat thankful for that.

 

“Then allow me.” He nibbles at her earlobe, “Let’s find which parts of you respond the best, hm?” Invisible fingers tweak her nipples. She lets out a little surprised gasp as a warm mouth envelopes one of her breasts, the sensitive skin massaging causing her nipple to peak up and harden. Writhing beneath him, unsure of what to do, she moans and whimpers. He comes off her breast with an audible  _ pop, _ and Kylo wishes she could see him look up at her, wishes she would see the way his eyes lust for her body. “Do you like that?” 

 

“Yes.” She sounds small, almost reserved, as though she’s unsure of what to make of the pleasure. He finds it irresistible. 

 

His tongue lashes out, licking a path down her salty skin towards her legs. Her knees are jelly, her legs loose and giving to his touch. Rey arches her back against the bed and stares at the ceiling, almost ashamed at her quick and mewling responses to his body. 

 

“Rey.” His mouth is off hers, noticing that she seems unsure of continuing. “Would you like for me to stop?”

 

“I can’t see you,” She whispers, the wine finally taking a firm hold on her mind. Tears fill her eyes. “I can’t see you.” Everything is hazy, almost a regretful blur. Rey suddenly realizes that what she wants is somehow intangible to her and she needs the world to stop so she can think. 

  
“I’m sorry.” He stops, climbing over her small body and snuggling her closer. “I’m sorry that this has to be. I’m sorry.” He whispers in her ear over and over those two useless words until her eyes become too heavy for her to stay awake and her soul settles down for sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop Whoop! Hello, Reylo fam, we are steadily progressing through the story!
> 
> I would like to thank everyone once again for the kind comments you all throw at me. It really shows me how much you appreciate my work and encourages me to write more. Like, you guys have no idea. I saw that another one of my Reylo Fics had been recommended by a prominent Tumblr person and I swear to god I made a noise like an asthmatic humpback whale. I almost went into cardiac arrest. 
> 
> Anyway! Thank you all for sticking around. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Sorry that there's no fucking, didn't feel like Rey is in the best place yet.


	5. Chapter 5

He doesn’t sleep all night, staying conscious to keep his invisibility spell up as he holds her. Rey’s body wraps around his as though she’s a boa constrictor. Arms around his chest, legs around his waist, her head on his chest. She’s laying claim to him already, he thinks proudly. Marking her territory for anyone who comes in to see.  His wife to be.  _ His _ . 

 

His chest fills up with air as he fights the urge to scream with happiness. Rey, his queen, his muse, a woman who he so desperately wants to be with accepted his proposal and is willing to be with him. 

 

When she wakes as the sun rises to its place in the sky, she mumbles an adorably sleepy “good morning” to him. He kisses her forehead, sighing with contentment at how she leans into his touch. 

 

“I wish to apologize about last night,” He whispers into her hair, “I went too far to quickly. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” Truth be honest, he’s not used to people rejecting him at all. He does understand what consent is, and though he’s usually ordered to work around it, he still feels strongly about abiding to it. Especially with Rey. He would never want her to look upon him with disgust. 

 

“We both had an awful lot of wine.” She waits a moment before continuing, “And I’m told that I get horribly emotional when drunk.” She snuggles deeper into his chest, this empty space before her. She supposes that she must look strange, seemingly floating just above the bed.

 

“You have every reason to have your doubts.” He thinks of all the little lies he has piling upon him, the details that could slip at any given moment. He’s so close to her already, surely she might be able to overlook them… would she? His brain categorizes every tiny fib he ever told her, picking them apart and wondering in terror how negatively she’ll feel about each one. A single word from any of his servants, even by accident,  will shatter their carefully built relationship. 

 

“I do.” Rey responds bluntly, “But I’ve accepted that you and I won’t be able to have a normal marriage. I just ask that you be patient with my adjustment.” 

 

Kylo Ren feels almost blind with ecstasy. “That is the least I can do, Rey, Thank you.” 

 

\---

 

They eat breakfast together in her room; then he shows her the libraries. He wishes he could bottle up her face expression and keep it forever, hoping that maybe one day she’ll gaze as lustfully to him as she does to the stories. She buries her face in the books, and he doesn’t hear from her again until her stomach growling distracts her from reading. 

 

They eat dinner in the banquet hall, then Rey shyly invites him back to her room. She is still jittery about consummating their union, so they simply lay in bed together and talk. Rey tells him about her sisters, Kaydel, Rose, and Jessika. About Rose’s soon to be lover named Finn, if everything works out for them. Kylo senses gut-wrenching homesickness when she mentions them, and it takes everything in his power to not sweep her away and deliver her family once more. 

 

The next morning, they are a tangle of limbs and sheets upon the bed, two souls slowly merging into one. For the first time in a long time, Kylo Ren feels at peace.

 

“Good morning, precious.” He whispers into his beloved’s hair, giving her a gentle kiss along her ear. 

 

Her arms embrace him tighter in response. 

 

A smile spreads across his face as he decides to poke some fun at his beloved. “So you were having an interesting dream about the sea.”

 

She jerks up, exclaiming profanities. “How- how did-”

 

“You talk in your sleep.” Kylo laughs, brushing some hair from her face. “It sounded like a lot was going on, what was it again? A pirate fish?” 

 

“Shut up.” Her face turns red. She pulls herself off of him and unties the braid in her hair. 

 

“Oh, yes, and there was a dolphin named Archimedes. He could fly?” 

 

“He had golden wings.” Rey rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “And he could sing very well. He made me listen to his entire concert, which just involved loud whistling and creaking noises while his shrimp friend did an interpretive dance.” 

 

He does not remember a time when he laughed so hard it hurt, completely unforced and of his own volition. He doesn’t think he could stop if he tried. “Oh, love, you have a most wonderful mind.” Speaking of minds, that reminds him to ask her about her abilities. Kylo stands, letting several joints pop, before suggesting, “Let’s go into the bath.” 

 

“Together?” Rey squeaks, her fingers folding together. 

 

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I will leave.” 

 

Her mouth thins as she stares out to the balcony in a moment of deliberation. Kylo can see the many unique gears turning in her mind while she weighs the pros and cons of each action. “No,” she decides, slowly nodding in his direction, “together is fine.” 

 

The tub is big enough for five to fit comfortably, six or seven if all parties are accepting to intimate touching. Which, of course, more likely than not if they are in  _ his _ home then they usually are. Rey is probably the first to be shy when it comes to her body.

 

She keeps her clothes on until the last possible moment, letting her chiton fall to the floor before stepping into the blue mosaic pool. The water steams around her skin, putting her into a further state of relaxation. He takes off his own, the fabric immediately becoming visible when he sets it aside. Rey’s mouth twitches when she sees it. 

 

“What’s so funny?” He asks in good humor, settling down at a respectable distance from her.

 

“I thought you walked around naked for awhile.” Rey admits, idly splashing at the water around her. At his defensive sputtering, she defends herself, “I didn’t know you! I didn’t know the extent of your curse or whatever. When I touch you I still see myself, and while were sitting the couch didn’t just vanish… so before you let me touch you, and this was kind of the reason I was especially nervous about it-” 

 

“Oh. Oh, I see.” He does understand how she might construe the information she was given in that manner. He lets out chuckle, “Oh, Rey, there’s so many things I did wrong to start this relationship.” Everything was a hasty blur, the insistent need to remove her from those suitors who might have stolen her affections first. Now that he has her, he allows himself to reflect on the many mistakes he has made. 

 

She pauses for a few moments before answering. “It’s… well, I understand why you’ve done them.” Her statement isn’t that of forgiveness, but it’s not of malice, either. It’s acceptance of her situation. “Let’s start over. Kylo Ren, my name is Rey.” She holds her hand out for him to shake. 

 

“I’m pleased to meet you, Rey.” His hand travels along the underside of her arm before taking her hand. “I plan to make you a pleased wife.”

 

“May I touch your face again?” She asks quietly. 

 

“You don’t have to request that of me. Come here.” 

 

She complies, holding out her hands to feel for his skin. His palms close around her arms, then guide her up to his face. She cups his cheeks, then kisses him softly. It happens too fast for him to react cleverly, yet slow enough for him to enjoy it rigorously. 

 

He doesn’t move a single inch in fear of startling her. When she finishes, pulling away, she’s looking into his eyes directly, as though she can see him . Which she can’t still, a quick glance down to his hands tells him that much. It’s a sign of her abilities, her power of Other Sight that accompanies many other things. Like him. 

 

“Magnificent.” He breaths, barely loud enough for her to hear. 

 

Flushing, she turns away. “I’m not that good of a kisser.” Her voice is muffled, clearly embarrassed. 

 

“Not that- I agree, you could use some work there.” He pokes her in the stomach. She yelps, but not alarmed. “And I’d be more than happy to teach you. However I’m mentioning something else.” 

 

“What?” 

 

Pulling her into his lap, he quickly explains the power the Earth Mother provides to a select few of her children. “Some of us are born with power, something that is deeply bonded within our souls. It stems from Gaia, the Holy Mother, and gives us reign over a selection of elements.” 

“Like… like the demigods?” Rey asks, excitement tingling in her voice, “My parents…” 

 

“No. Like a god itself, Rey.” 

 

She giggles nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

 

“Hold out your hands.” He helps her cup her hands the water. “Now feel.” Using himself as a bridge, he pulls the power out from the ground and lets it flow through her, carefully controlling the movement. She gasps, closing her eyes, and allowing unknown energy flow through her. 

 

“Power. Power beyond your imagination, oh, Rey. Let me teach you. I could show you so many things. So many things.” He nuzzles her neck, pressing a kiss on her wet skin. 

 

“Yes. Please.” She opens her eyes, leaning into his touch. “Please. Please.” 

 

\---

 

He begins with books. Gives her a list of scrolls on her power to read, teaches her the basics of meditation. Shows her the best stance for connecting with the Earth Mother. 

 

Rey is a fast learner. She comprehends everything he tells her about the basics, accessing her power more efficiently than he remembers doing. It’s beautiful to watch her lift a stone, then turn to his direction for approval. He always gives it, eagerly. 

 

The days fly by, faster than he would like. Of all things the gods have mastered, time is not one of them. It slips through his fingers like grains of sand, no matter how hard he clenches his fist, it won’t stop. The fear of her leaving takes hold like a seed in his soul. It begins to rot him from inside out. 

 

She  _ pulls  _ him into bed one night. “I was uncertain of the future before.” She presses her mouth up to his in a kiss, “I still am. But I want you to know that I am not afraid. Not anymore.” 

 

“What has brought this on?” Kylo isn’t complaining at her sudden turn of affection. 

 

“You’ve helped me understand parts of myself I thought were curses. You’ve shown me the light in me. I want you to know, Kylo Ren, that I will have you. Every part of you. The ugly bits, the beautiful ones. I accept you as you are. I ask you do the same for me.” 

 

“I do, Rey Ren.” 

 

She laughs giddily and kisses him again. “Perhaps I should keep my name.” 

 

“What is it again?” 

 

“Amidala.” 

 

His blood freezes. That woman, the woman-

 

There are two motherly voices in his memories. Two very different women trying to steer him two very different paths. One is syrupy sweet, telling him about all the things she can do for him since he is hers. Aphrodite. He still hears her every day, simply background noise to his work as her paladin. The other, however, is kind without expecting anything in return. Patient. A gentle, cool caress in a desert of sun and sand. One wants his subjugation and calls him Kylo Ren. One simply wants a son, whispering for Ben in the dead of the night. 

 

The whole world disappears as Rey kisses him again. Every previous thought he’s ever had, gone.  _ Rey _ is  _ kissing _ him. Of her own volition. Because she wants to. Because she wants him. 

 

She helps him pull her clothes free, the dress forming a puddle on the cool floor. She steps out, completely naked before him in every sense of the word. “Please,” she whispers, finding his bare chest and pulling him close, “I want you tonight.” 

 

“Then you shall.” If that doesn’t send an erection straight to any man’s cock then they should see a physician. He wants nothing more than to devour her like an animal, only stops himself when he remembers the last time they almost consummate their union. Long ago he has already decided how he will pleasure her, deciding to go an old-fashioned route in order to stay within her boundaries. No need to be fancy, anything too fast will scare her. He doesn’t wish to risk her pushing him away again, so he’ll go slow. Savor her. 

 

Until she begs him to go faster. 

 

So when he kisses her, he does it gently, cupping her face in both hands and doesn’t use any tongue until she opens her mouth for him. His tongue prods her’s, letting her explore her sexuality without judgment. The kissing lasts for awhile, Kylo can feel her getting hot and bothered every time they touch their mouths together. She likes it. 

 

They lay on her bed, naked together, kissing as the moon passes overhead. His hand snakes down to that precious spot between her thighs, studying her carefully to make sure everything he does is welcomed by her. She closes her eyes and sighs with pleasure when he swipes his finger down her slit. She’s so wet for him. 

 

The water bubbles cheerfully in the background, a peaceful and familiar sound that puts Rey at ease. She wraps her legs around his waist, his erection pressed up against her stomach. When Kylo kisses her again, she melts into a puddle of simpering mess. 

 

He presses his mouth against her ear, his whispers sending shivers down her body.  “Is this fine?” A large finger prods her cunt, dipping into the slick heat, slowly pumping in and out. Her hips buck to meet his hand.

 

“Yes.” It’s almost uncomfortable, but each time his thumb touches her clit a zing of pleasure runs through her nerves. She moans softly as he makes those slow, slow circles around her entrance before dipping down inside her again. 

 

It won’t be as painful if he stretches her muscles with her fingers. He’s determined to not allow any blood shed from their union. The ridges that line her insides relax with her arousal, her slick almost pumping out of her cunt to prepare  for his cock. He kisses and touches to slowly unravel her body until he’s satisfied she will enjoy the act as much as he will. 

 

“I’m going to enter you. Is that okay?” 

 

Shifting her body to make his entrance easier, she nods. “Yes.” 

 

He does it slowly, guiding just the tip into her wanting cunt. Precum helps lubricate his cock, sliding to the hilt. She gasps, looking up at him with those intelligent eyes. Her legs are wide open to help keep everything loose. Reaching over, he brushes a few strands from her face, pressing his mouth onto her forehead in a kiss. They stay that way for a solid moment, allowing her to grow used to his size. 

 

When her body relaxes, he knows he can move. Gradually, he pulls out, savoring the way her eyes close, memorizing the sweet sigh of pleasure that escapes her lips. Her fingers reach his waist, his chest, wrap around his shoulders, as though she can’t decide where to touch him. It’s adorable. 

 

Cock throbbing almost painfully, his one fear is spilling into her before she has a chance to experience the pleasure he offers. Though selfishly he wants nothing more than to pound into her tight pussy, he knows that she will never want him in her bed again if he does. The masochistic part of himself enjoys the deprecation of pleasuring his lover before taking something in return.

 

He cups one of her breasts, licking at the other. One of her sweet whimpers rewards his actions. He opens his mouth and sucks her hardened nipple, running his tongue around in circles, nudging the tip, and letting his teeth scrape gently against her skin. Her fingers tangle in his hair, and she gasps, arching her back against him and moaning. 

 

Her orgasm has to be teased out of her. It isn’t swift, it’s timid and cautious, like her. She’s tipped over the edge when he bucks almost roughly into her, angling that one way that he knows gets Aphrodite every time. He pulls back to do the never failing clit rub to cause her hips to convulse in order to avoid the fluttery half-done orgasm. Her sweet cunt clenches around him. He looks down at her, face sweaty and pink, completely undone by him, and spills his seed into her body. 

 

“I love you.” He states, laying on top of her. He gives her a kiss, open-mouthed and slow, pulling back to repeat what he had just said. “I love you.” 

 

Her embrace tightens as he slides his soft cock out of her. The two of them embrace, bare and open to each other in a way that neither of them has experienced before. Kylo Ren having never experienced sex involving messy human emotions on his part, never allowing himself the choice of staying after the act and talking about life with his partner. 

 

Rey lays her head on his shoulder, snuggling into his side. She is almost afraid to ask about any past lovers he might have had, because of his obvious experience in the bedroom. A part of her is jealous that men are able to sleep around while women are supposed to stay chaste. To gauge his reaction, she says calmly, “I slept with someone once, before you.” 

 

His entire body tenses, his arms tightening around her. Before she can feel fear, he quickly relaxes. “I see.” His voice is carefully collected. “Do you still harbor feelings for that person?” 

 

Rey ponders the question, remembering the visitor from a neighboring country. “No,” she decides, “I mean, I respect her, and think of her as a friend, but I don’t think I would return to her bed.” Soft whispers in the night, wandering to the stable and stealing a kiss beneath the bushes. It seemed so adventurous at the time, though looking back, it was just silly young love. Rey is certain that half the palace got wind of it, though they never mention it to her. And like most visiting diplomats, she followed her parents back to her country. Last Rey heard the girl was engaged to a First Order officer. 

 

“You want to know about any lovers I have had.” He knows what she is doing, asking without asking. Some of the things he has done out of boredom used to never bother him, yet laying with a girl as pure as his Rey, he feels sick at the thought of telling her everything. So he won’t, he will only say a few things to be expected of a rich lord with godlike powers. 

 

“I have had lovers. Men and women, it didn’t matter to me.” He traces the contours of her collarbone. “I drank. I fucked. I won’t deny that I was a mess When you live among gods who have been barely pulling along for the past millennia, it starts rubbing off on you. I won’t make excuses for my mistakes.” 

 

She’s silent. When he glances down at her, he sees doubt in her eyes. He continues, “While in Rome, one of the senators spoke of a princess whose political prowess matched his best ambassadors’. They were speaking of how you managed to finagle a favored trade route for your merchants, and I thought, that I had to meet someone as intelligent as that.” 

 

“Huh,” Rey mumbles.

 

“And I heard what they say about you in the festival. That you are as beautiful as you are clever, that you are almost ethereal, a goddess walking among men. I knew you were special from the moment I laid eyes on you.” Memories of that night are fuzzy at best, he will be the first to admit. “Seeing your face for the first time, Rey. It was like everything else was… insignificant suddenly. As though everything in my life was leading up to that one single movement.” 

 

“Stop.” Her face is bright red, an aura of disbelief shimmering with her soul. “Just…. I’m fine now, thank you.” 

 

He doesn’t press, but he also thinks she doesn’t understand how firm he is in his love. He will have to find a way to prove it somehow. 

 

For the rest of the night, they stay silent, basking in each other’s company. Rey’s leg curls over his waist, one of her arms draped across his chest. She lays on her stomach; face turned towards his, mouth slightly open as she sleeps. 

 

There has been an unnatural lull in Aphrodite’s activity; he thinks as he stares at the ceiling. Any day now, she’ll call him for another task, and he’ll have to comply. What happens after that fills him with dread, that he’ll have to fuck another person that isn’t Rey.

 

\---

 

Sure enough, the next morning, Hermes is waiting for him in his office. 

 

Rey is out in the gardens, thank goodness. She hasn’t been in this wing of his villa, mainly because she can’t fly. And maybe also doesn’t know its there. 

 

“Aphrodite is worried about you.” Hermes tosses a Kylo’s royal seal up into the air, catching it when it falls. “She told me to come make sure you aren’t, what are her words, smitten with a wench that isn’t her.” 

 

“Are you going to investigate?” Kylo wonders how hard it would be to hide the god’s body. 

 

“Do you jest? Of course not, I couldn’t care less.” Hermes tosses the seal in the air again, “I’m here as a courtesy to you, the one person who can kind of almost keep her under control. She’s conniving; you know that. If there is a person you have taken to, don’t let them out of your sight.” 

 

“I will not.” Kylo clasps his hands on Hermes’ shoulders. “Thank you. I won’t forget this.”

 

\---

 

Aphrodite glares at him with her two obsidian eyes. Her skin is so dark, it almost sucks in the light around her. Blue eyeshadow pops from her eyelids, her lips and nipples dusted with a golden color. Her body is tall and thin today, her breasts a size small than what she usually opts for. Entirely naked, she sits atop her throne, figures of various ethnicities and genders serving her every desire. One is kneeling between her legs, Kylo can hear the obscene sucking noises from the other side of the room.

 

“Paladin.” She raises a goblet of nectar to him. “How good to see you. We haven’t had one on one time in awhile, have we?”

 

“No, my goddess.” Kylo genuflects on one knee, daring a glance up at her. “How have you been?”

 

The metal goblet bends between her fingers. “Very well, very well.” 

 

“Do you have a mission for me, goddess?” 

 

She laughs mirthlessly, “Oh, so eager to do my bidding? Or trying to rush back to your new toy?” She raises a leg and kicks the kneeling man from her thighs, standing her full height, walking down the steps towards him. “Do you think me stupid, Ren? Do you forget who raised you? Who has taught you the very tricks you attempt to pull on me?” 

 

“No-” Kylo is cut off when she slaps him, hard enough for his vision to black out for a second. 

 

“Don’t lie to me, you pathetic, disgusting creature.” Hands around his throat, lifting him off the ground. Aphrodite’s eyes are merciless, deathly enraged at the thought of someone breaking from her control. “Who could possible want  _ you?” _

 

He is dropped back onto the ground, his skin stinging against the stone. Aphrodite continues, walking around him like a predator, “Who could  _ love _ you, a whore of Aphrodite? Do you know that’s what they call you on Olympus?” 

 

Skin still burning from the slap, he keeps his eyes on the ground. This isn’t the first time she’s gone off the rails. He has to stay quiet and let her bore herself from beating him.

 

“You are  _ nothing _ without me, Paladin, do you understand? Without Aphrodite, you are just a  _ whore.” _ She pulls him back to his feet, smiling at him like nothing it the matter. Brushing some hair from his face, she coos, “Just know that I love you. I am the only person who truly understands you.” 

 

Her mouth is on his, possessive and firm. He closes his eyes and complies to her every wish. 

 

He hates himself. Aphrodite is right, he's just a whore. If Rey ever found out... Nausea fills his body. She can never find out. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, fam. Another chapter for your viewing pleasure. 
> 
> A little more on Kylo's past! Hope you all enjoy me wildly connecting the dots and hope it makes sense. 
> 
> Thank you for your kudos and comments! They are always appreciated! I cannot stress that enough. 
> 
> See you all in the next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

Frosty moonlight curls down from the open balcony, shimmering against Rey’s skin as she sleeps. Her body folds together against the blankets, her mouth slightly open as she breathes. Hair flies out of her tightly knitted buns, splaying against the pillows in veins of brunette. The people of Naboo were right, Kylo thinks to himself. She looks like a goddess. 

 

He lays his body beside her, shifting his mass to curve against her’s. Her breaths shallow as she wakes, not bothering to open her eyes as she turns to face his chest, a demure smile on her lips. “Hello,” Rey whispers, her voice airy and dry from slumber. 

 

Kylo presses a kiss on her temple, folding his arms around her. “You looked so cozy; I thought I’d join you.” 

 

“There’s plenty of room to spare.” She allows him to hold her tightly against his chest. 

 

Quickly, Rey falls back to sleep. Kylo resists tightening his embrace, listening to the thundering beat of his heart. Everything feels as though it’s falling apart, and his union with Rey has barely begun. He is almost certain that, like all of Aphrodite’s tantrums, her obsession with his sudden lack of appeal will fade as a prettier nymph walks past or a prideful prince needs to be humiliated. At least, that’s what he hopes. But the numbing fear of Aphrodite finding Rey… 

 

It’s a physical pain, this fear. Something tangible, inside of his chest. If he did not know better, he would think he is dying. 

 

Kylo presses his nose into her hair and lets Rey’s scent soothe him. 

 

\---

 

Rey folds her hands primly over the table after finishing her breakfast. “Can you guess what day it is?” She asks, smiling at him with that cheerful, don’t-argue-with-me attitude. 

 

Kylo, for the sake of being difficult to mask his insecurities, plays dumb. “The Day of Artemis?” 

 

“No.” By the way Rey’s eyebrows arch, she knows. “One month ago, if you would remember, you had me brought here like a savage king. And then you told me that if I pleased, I could go back home when the winds are right.” 

 

“Is that so?” Kylo pours himself a goblet of wine, knowing full well that wine first thing in the morning is something he will come to regret. 

 

“Well, it is so.” Rey picks at the crumbs left on her plate. “I would like to visit my family, which, by the way, I have. Maybe introduce you to my mother while we are at it.” 

 

His body relaxes ever so slightly at her proposal. “I suppose, if you absolutely insist, that can be arranged.” 

 

“Well, I’m ready right now whenever you are.” She leaves him no room to wriggle out of it. He truly admires her spunk. He takes the back of her chair and pulls it out from the table, helping her up and then sweeping her off her feet as romantically as he can muster at the moment.  

 

Rey makes a small squeal of surprise, raising her arms to wrap around his neck. She is so tiny, so dainty in his arms, he notices as he takes off. Her laughter is quick and giddy as she tries to swallow her panic at the distant land now far beneath them. 

 

The wind tugs at her hair, almost injuring her scalp. In a matter of only minutes, she is certain, she sees the familiar outline of her home island on the horizon. She almost screams with joy but has to focus on her careful intake of air as it pelts at her face. 

 

She feels something prod at her mind, recognizing the gentle whisper of Kylo’s soul reaching out to her. She accepts it readily, her insides almost melting at his spiritual presence inside her.  _ I’m casting an invisibility spell over you,  _ his murmur rumbles within her chest. 

 

_ Why? _ She questions. 

 

_ How would you feel if you saw a woman fly down from the sky? _

 

Oh, Zeus and Hera, after the Festival’s fiasco she can only imagine what the people would do to her if she made this little miracle.  _ Thank you. _ She squeezes her arms around him tighter.  _ My bedroom is over there by the castle.  _

 

Kylo finds it quickly, though she barely directs him. Rey thinks nothing of it as she feels herself being gently pushed through her open window, making sure to clumsily kiss him on the lips. 

 

“Meet me here at sundown,” she whispers into his mouth. 

 

His lips twitch, and he kisses her again, with more passion than before. “So demanding.” He responds, though Rey knows he’ll do as she says without hesitation. 

 

“See you then?” She implores again, running her fingers through his hair as easily as though she can see it. His fingers snap, and she can see her hand once more. 

 

“No storm, nor beast, nor god can keep me from you.” He takes her fingers and kisses them before a rush of the breeze tells her he’s gone. 

 

A glass shatters behind her. 

 

Rey whirls about to find a chambermaid in considerable distress. “Oh, hello!” She smiles, trying to calm the lady down, “I hope I didn’t miss much. Could you perhaps fetch-” the maid’s screams echo down the hall as she runs away, “Leia.” Rey finishes. 

 

Rey takes a few steps out of her room before her sisters ambush her, shrieks of joy and terror flooding the castle as they cry together, a singular mass of sisterly love on the floor. 

 

“Girls.” Leia’s voice resonates through the palace, strong even with the flood of emotion spilling from her eyes. “Let her breath. Rey, my gods.” She takes a step forward as Rey scrambles to stand tall, trying to keep her own tears at bay as the only mother she’s ever known lays her hands on Rey’s shoulders. “Let me have a look at you, my girl.” 

 

Leia’s eyes miss nothing as she looks over Rey, looking for bruises, cuts, or any other sign of distress. Instead of horrifying clues of rape, Leia finds Rey with pink tipped cheeks, still round with health, and the soft smile of a woman who’s laid with another person in the name of love. Leia pulls the girl to her chest, unable to see her any older than the scrawny girl Leia took in years ago, still sobbing from the words of the Oracle. 

 

“Are you alright?” Leia asks, her voice soft. 

 

“I have so much to tell you.” Rey mumbles, her lungs squeezing so much she feels she might break. 

 

“And you will tell it,” Leia states firmly, “Come, come to the kitchen. I’ll have one of the cooks whip something up for us to drink.” 

 

Rey smiles weakly. “Something strong.” 

 

“Nothing less, I hope.” Leia chuckles, still holding onto Rey’s arm for dear life as the ladies of the palace make their way down to the kitchens. 

 

Rey sits, drinking spicy sweet wine as she quickly explains to them what had happened to her up to that moment. About the beast who lifted her up and took her away. About the invisible man with his tender touch. She leaves out the parts with the wild fornicating, as she does not feel like exposing poor Leia to anything more. 

 

“You can’t be serious.” Jessika is the one who speaks first. 

 

“I am.” Rey is prepared to fight tooth and nail. 

 

“Flying invisible man.” Jessika says as-a-matter-a-factly, and repeats herself for emphasis, “ _ Flying invisible man.” _

 

Rey looks over to Rose for support, but the girl is avoiding eye contact. Kaydel is staring intently at Leia, who is suddenly clutching her chest as though going into cardiac arrest.

 

“Leia?” Rey asks softly, hoping to the gods she hasn’t shocked her adoptive mother to death. 

 

“What- oh, forgive me, my dear. What did you say his name was again?” Leia asks, managing to get ahold of herself. She sits up primly, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a cloth napkin. 

 

“Kylo, um, Ren. But we’ve agreed that I keep my name.” Rey tries to soften the atmosphere by giggling flatly. 

 

“Rey Ren sounds like a country bumpkin.” Jess agrees, getting a little glare from Kaydel. 

 

“I think it has a nice ring to it, though. Rey... Ren.” The blonde tries to defend her sister. 

 

“No, no. Rey, did, er, Mister Ren tell you anything about what he does?” Leia suddenly seems very urgent. She leans forward to the daughter in question, “Rey, did he tell you about his occupation?” 

 

“Um, no, but his servants told me he was a knight of the gods, whatever that means.” Rey suddenly feels small and overly scrutinized. She is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that she actually knows very little of the man to be her husband, except that she wishes so desperately that the words he whispers to her at night are true. 

 

Leia takes an intense breath, closing her eyes and folding her hands together. Rey feels sick, knowing her mother’s body language intimately enough to know that Leia is stringing together words to carefully break terrible news. “Rey.” Her voice is gentle, motherly. “Do you know the story of my mother, our dear Queen Padme Amidala?”

 

Rey hates Leia’s ‘let her figure it out on her own’ tactic, wishing that her mother would just spit it out, but her stomach is in tougher knots than what a skilled seaman can tie and she suddenly can’t breathe. “Other than the fact she led the Empire’s slaves to freedom? That our first queen and her husband found this island?”

 

“And what of her husband, Rey? What of my father?” 

 

Her throat closes up. Leia has never once spoken of her father, not even when Rey asked a few years ago. Rey’s questions were only met with silence, a terrible melancholy washing over her foster mother’s face, and Rey never brought it up once again. Rey tries to wrack her brain for any stray facts she might have picked up. “Our Lady Padme’s husband... was a Mystical.” 

 

“Yes.” Leia nods sharply once. 

 

It’s so hard for Rey to think of the First Queen as anyone but a mythical messiah bringing her people to a promise land, but the fact remains that the woman is Leia’s mother, her flesh and blood. “So,” Rey says slowly, “The blood of a Mystic flows within your veins.” 

 

“Yes,” Leia says again. 

 

“And so that also… Makes you… one of them.” Rey doesn’t understand how she has never thought of it that way before. If (a), then (b). If Leia’s father was the ancient power user married to the First Queen, then their offspring,  _ Leia,  _ would share their blood as well. Leia is the same as the Oracle. Maybe a little more coherent, granted, but all the same. 

 

“Yes.” Leia nods, “Yes. And my brother. Especially him.” 

 

Rey blinks. “I’m sorry, your what?” She glances towards her sisters, only Kaydel looks as though she is following what Leia is saying. 

 

Leia takes an even deeper breath. “I think it’s time.”

 

A pregnant pause settles around the table. “Time for what?” Rose asks timidly. 

 

“To tell you of the curse of the Skywalker Clan.” 

 

\---

 

Kylo Ren ruts into his goddess in the only way an empty shell can. Her knee-length hair spills around her head, in blood red waves around the mattress as she writhes and moans and screams in ecstasy, all exaggerations of what she is truly feeling. 

 

Aphrodite isn’t someone who feeds on the act of sex itself. Sex can be just as useless as wine on an empty stomach, though enjoyable, can only be truly indulged with a meal for the actual nourishment. And her paladin is making himself an empty meal. 

 

This may not be the first time she’s felt him pull away from her grasp, but it most certainly is the most far he’s gone. Her paladin, her sweet, devoted dog. The only semi-mortal she’s deemed worthy of her body. And yet, and yet,  _ and yet,  _ he is so quick to turn his head to any pretty fuck he sticks his cock in. 

 

Is Aphrodite not beautiful? Is she not merciful? Is she not  _ orgasmic _ just to look at? 

 

“Tell me, paladin, how you love me.” She tangles her freckled fingers into his hair, locking around his scalp almost painfully. He licks and laps at her cunt diligently, disobeying her but doing it only for the greater good of her pleasure. Impatiently, she pulls his hair, yanking his head back to expose his delicately human neck. His mouth is slick with her nectar, though his eyes are wide and sober. 

 

“I love you.” His words are but a faint echo of what she truly wants to hear. “I would die for you.” 

 

“Would you now.” Aphrodite is calm. She is calm because she is in control. 

 

“Yes.” His words are empty promises, suddenly the exact same as all the other mortals who have warmed her bed. Aphrodite is in control, but for the first time, she fears the loss of that control. 

 

She usually is quick to sever losses, though this certain paladin has always been special to her. Always so eager to do her bidding, and to do it so well without any hesitation. He’s just as good to her as his grandfather during his prime, even better. Fear isn’t something she’s felt in a long time and as the memories of that fateful night where her previous paladin turned his blade around from his son to her….

 

Her body sometimes stings when she hears thunder, phantom pain of long since healed injuries spasming through her nerves. 

 

The sun chariot is at its fullest, shining its dangerous light upon them, bathing her in gold luminescence. Even Kylo Ren’s straying eyes look upon her with the hints of lust still burning behind whatever infatuation he has. A bit of confidence returns, after all, she is a Goddess, and _ she  _ is in control. 

 

“Good paladin,” Aphrodite coos, releasing her still firm grip on his hair. “Of course you would. You’re mine.” She suddenly gets a deliciously evil idea. 

 

She pets his hair like a dog, pulling him on top of her. His member still throbs inside of her perfect cunt, still thrusting back and forth in order to give her pleasure. “I’ve been so hard on you.” It’s true, running his ragged in the hopes he would be too exhausted to return to his new lover. “But I feel you are the only one I can trust, Kylo. Don’t you understand?” 

 

Nodding quickly, he utters a soft moan as Aphrodite raises her hips to meet him. 

 

“And I do feel that I put a lot of pressure on you.” She sits up to press her lips upon his chest. “It’s because you are the only one I can truly  _ trust, _ Kylo. I hope you understand.” Her tongue trails his collarbone, as she lets her statement sit in his head for a moment. 

 

Her orgasm comes shortly after, and while she shivers with pleasure, while Kylo is in her arms, she plants an idea. “If only you had someone you could work with.” 

 

She leaves it at that, letting him fish through all the possibilities on his own. 

 

\---

 

“You know of the Great Migration, how the First Queen led the people to this island,” Leia says, standing up and turning to face the window. Her wine glass lays on the table, full and untouched. “But no one but a few elders know of the entire story. It’s not something we often speak of.” 

 

“Then what is it? And why haven’t you told us before?” Jess asks, her hands playing with her half-empty goblet. 

 

Leia turns back to them, her eyes sad. It’s Kaydel who speaks, “The past is tangled with terrible truths, on both sides. It would be best to let it die, speaking of it gives it power.” 

 

Rey looks back to Leia, her mind trying desperately to put the pieces together on her own. A bird chirps in the distance, something unnaturally usual in a time such as this. 

 

Leia takes a deep breath, using her pain as courage to speak of what had happened. “The Empire worshipped a different set of gods than the spirits and ghosts we pray to, as most nations all have different religions they follow.” Rey remembers this is one of the first lessons she learned under Leia’s tutelage, to respect others beliefs even if they seem silly. “We call them the Old Gods, and though we say now that worshipping them is too painful a reminder of the suffering our slave ancestors endured, that is not entirely true.” 

 

With shaking hands, Rey lifts the wine to her lips and drinks. She has a terrible feeling that she knows what Leia is talking about. 

 

“The reason the fallen Empire had so much power was because of their patronage to the Old Gods.” Leia braces a hand on a chair to hold herself up. “The worship of the Old Gods, the sacrifices and favors, acts of devotion feed those creatures of primordial existence. I won’t lie, girls, there are beings in this world beyond our scope of understanding that should be respected and feared.” Leia glances at Rey crookedly, as if she is holding something back. “Some of them more so than others.”  

 

“Padme Amidala led an exodus of monumental proportions, helping the helpless escape the brutality of human sacrifices and suffering. Her husband, Anakin of the Skywalker Clan, was a part of an underground holy order that worshipped only the Earth Mother. It has been said that his abilities as a mystic were unmatched. It was he who listened to the sea and led the ships safely through the unforgiving reefs that keep our island safe from invaders.” 

The Earth Mother. Rey remembers her time praying, meditating, and posing in different angles to help open herself up the ancient power. 

 

“He fell prey to an Old God, targeted for his power. Not before he and my mother had children to continue the line, of course,” Leia chuckles dryly, “as you can tell. My mother had a set of twins. My brother, Luke, and I.” 

 

“I don’t remember anyone ever speaking of him.” Rose is already pouring herself another cup of wine, visibly shaken and pale. Jess is the only one who is scrutinizing everything Leia is saying. 

 

“No. He was stolen as a child.” 

 

Rey nearly spits out her mouthful of wine all over her sisters. The rumors, though wildly convoluted, has some spark of truth within them. 

 

“Why weren’t you stolen as well?” Jess asks. 

 

“The same reason Padme wasn’t, I suppose.” Leia gives them a wry smile, “There’s something about us women that can’t be controlled so easily.” She becomes serious once more, “Rey,” she implores, “I am telling you this because I love you. The Knights of Ren, the new Sith…” Her voice trails off, her face suddenly frail and broken. Rey is reminded of how old she is, of how much she must have endured. “Dangerous. More than you know.”

 

“Kylo wouldn’t... “ Rey hates how stupid she sounds, like every other maiden who defends their lover’s honor when that lover is undeserving. Rey used to pity those girls, and now she is one herself. 

 

“I won’t tell you what to do, Rey, you know that. The choice is yours, but I beg you,  _ think carefully. _ ” Leia sits back down, her face that of grim determination. 

 

\---

 

Rey is waiting for him, just as she said she would. Something about her is terribly off, the way she holds herself, rigid and tight, arms crossed firmly over her chest, her foot tapping impatiently on the marble floor. She had changed into one of her older, shorter gowns that make her look boyish and young. Her hair is more intricately weaved three-tiered bun than what she can accomplish with her own hands.

 

“Hello.” He prods gently, climbing through her window and standing before her. He smoothly runs his hands down her arms, relishing the feeling of her skin. 

 

“Hi.” She’s angry about something. Kylo hopes it’s not directed at him. 

 

“How are you, Rey?” He folds his large body against hers, his mouth pressing against her forehead in a kiss. He doesn’t lift her up in a sweeping embrace, scared that it would only enrage her further. 

 

“My mother brought to light a great many things today.” Her face isn’t angry anymore, it’s twitching with confusion. “Something about the Knights of Ren.” 

 

His blood turns frozen as the crystal night sky. Rey is silent, obviously waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t, so she continues, “They serve the Old Gods. You serve an Old God.” 

 

“Yes.” He won’t lie, he can’t lie, he already knows she’ll sense his deceit. 

 

Rey folds her hands primly, stepping away from him. “I gathered you served a god while living with you. Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” 

 

Kylo is quick to say, “I didn’t want you involved with them.” 

 

“Do you think me weak?” She is even quicker to respond. 

 

“No. Of course not.” He searches for words that won’t lose her to him. “They are… Cruel and perfect. You aren’t weak, you don’t deserve to be dragged into their games.” 

 

She studies the air where he is. “Let’s go.” Her arms wrap around his waist, and she presses her face into his chest. “Let’s just… go somewhere.” 

 

“Back home?”

 

“No. To that place you told me about, the other continent.” She loves the way he smells, like wood smoke and honey and… and… woman’s perfume? 

 

“If you wish.” He picks her up easily, “We must stay out of sight, however. You look too different and might be sacrificed to their gods.” 

 

She wriggles, “Wait, sacrificed? Wait, Kylo,  _ Kylo-” _

 

He lifts up into the air, far away from the castle, far away from prying ears.  _ My apologies, Love. Too many eyes in that place for my liking. _

 

_ SACRIFICED? _ Came her panicked, shrieking reply.

 

_ I was jesting, you know I would never put you in danger. _ He stills, the sun still sinking over the horizon. They are thousands of feet up from the ground, the air clear and biting. Clouds puff up in the far distance, washed in violets and pinks. Rey looks down, feeling vulnerable and excited at the same time. With her lover invisible, she feels she is floating all by herself, the blue marble of the ocean barely tangible all the way up here. 

 

_ Rey. _ A plea. A bargain. 

 

She leans up and presses her mouth against his chin.  _ You have some more explaining to do. I’m still mad.  _

 

They fly away, the half-sun to their side as he makes quick work of the thousands of miles between land masses. The stars flicker into existence as the last light of day dies, darkness enveloping the world like a gentle mother holding her child. A mountain peaks up on what Rey ganders  _ must _ be the edge of the world, as she clings to Kylo with every last bit of strength. The moon, yellow and more prominent than she has ever seen before, begins to rise over the rocky terrain and into the black dome above. 

 

Kylo lands gently, casting a spell over Rey so that she is just as invisible as he. “Stay quiet.” He warns, taking her hand in his and leading her quietly from the bushes. A distant boom echoes around them, the sound of drums like Rey has never heard before steadily pounding a rhythm. Curling smoke churns into the air up ahead, warm, orange glow carving out sharp and angular shadows all around her. 

 

He leads her the source of the festivities, a giant bonfire surrounded by smaller ones. People with dark skin and long, straight, black and brown hair twisted in braids dance in circles, leaping, crying out joyously. Older men and woman pound large, beautifully painted drums as others play strange melodies on flutes. Rey feels her hips begin to sway as she watches these people dance. 

 

“These people call themselves the Cherokee.” Kylo’s voice whispers into Rey’s ear. 

 

“What are they celebrating?” She asks, watching the dancers move seamlessly around the fires. 

 

“Friendships and cleansing of spirits.” He presses his mouth on the shell of her ear, almost determined to distract her from the festivities. Kylo wishes she can see her eyes glitter in the firelight. He holds her body close to his as possible and gives her neck small, fluttery kisses every now and then as they watch.

 

A woman begins dancing in the center, her face painted and hair weaved with shells and feathers. Rey suddenly understands that they are acting out a play, a loud, throaty singer narrating a story to the tune of the music. Rey wishes like nothing before that she could understand what these people are saying. Two people with jingling bracelets surround her, leaping around her in a way that makes Rey hold her breath, certain that they'll trip and fall. They don't, swaying and jumping to and fro as the singer continues on. 

 

Even Rey applauds as they finish, smiling and waving, going back to the sidelines. 

 

When the fire begins to become nothing more than smoldering ash, sparks popping up into the sky every now and then, Kylo pulls Rey away into the forest. 

 

“Did you like that?” He asked, finding her collarbone and kissing it gently. 

 

“When can we do it again?” She asks, fondling his hair. 

 

“They won’t be having another festival for a few months.” He lifts her up and pins her to the tree, “I’m sure I can find you another festival to go to.” 

 

“When?” Her voice is almost too quiet to hear. 

 

“In a week, another tribal nation will have a Moon Festival.”

 

“And… I can go?” 

 

“I don’t see why not.” He kisses her again and knows something is wrong. “Rey?”

 

She clears her throat, her legs wrapping around his waist. “It’s nothing. Come here.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Reylo fam, me again. That took longer to update and I apologize, life has been treatin' me wicked these days. Hope you all enjoy, the next update should take less time than this. 
> 
> Thank you for all your kudos and comments! They mean the world to me.


	7. Chapter 7

Kylo hikes her skirt up around her waist, burying his face into her neck and breathing in her mouthwatering scent. Haphazardly using one hand, he fiddles with the strings of his skirt, letting it fall to the ground. His lips travel along her chin, before meeting them. He understands finally why Rey had been struggling to make love to him; an invisible partner _is_ rather strange. Though Kylo has already mapped every crevice and curve of Rey’s body, not seeing her face as she whimpers his name does almost take away from the experience.

 

His tongue reaches out to taste the skin on her chest, just below her clavicle. Rey arches her back and whimpers, her hands reaching up and tugging away her shoulder straps to expose her breasts to him. Immediately once the bothersome fabric was out of the way, he bends down and kisses his way to one of her nipples. She sucks in her breath as he licks the tip of one, then moves to fully suck at her breast to tease those sweet little gasps from her lungs.

 

Her fingers wrap around his hair, nails digging into his scalp, the pain sharpening his senses and making the moment all the more pleasurable. He continues to lavish her, though something inside of her is distant.

 

Kylo plans on bringing her attention back to him.

 

He shifts her body, lifting her from the ground and pressing her up against the smooth bark of the tree. Her legs are wrapped around him, her core hot and wet for his cock. His hardness presses against her as he grinds his hips, giving her blissful friction.

 

She grabs his shoulder, and a wince vibrates through his muscles. She immediately lets go.”What happened to your shoulder?” The skin there is swollen to the touch, as though badly bruised.

 

“Nothing. A job-related incident, don’t worry about it.” His voice is terse, guarded. Rey wants to scream at him that he doesn’t have to be this way with her, but his face is back in her neck, and he’s sucking ever so gently at her earlobe, pulling back and blowing air on to the sensitive skin.

 

Rey can barely focus on anything but him, her suspicions and trepidations falling away as he pushes himself into her ready cunt. She breathes deeply, looking up into the stars, choking on the pleasure Kylo gives her. Her arms hold onto him for dear life, her inner folds so lusciously accepting of his cock. Gasps and whimpers escape her throat of their own volition, barely coherent and begging.

 

“Fuck, fuck, so tight.” His breath is almost feverish on her neck as he whispers to her. “You make me so hard, Rey. You’re so beautiful, so good, so good…”

 

Rey’s core is on the edge at those words, her nerves already beginning to tremble with orgasm. Her cum lubricants her pussy further, the hot nectar enveloping his cock. His sperm pours into her ready body moments later, his lazy thrusts slowing.

 

“That’s it, love. You’re perfect.” He gives her a lazy kiss on her mouth. “Perfect.”

 

They fly back together, after finding Kylo’s skirt which had returned to visibility once off of him for a few moments. He lays in her bed, asleep and holding onto her for dear life.

 

This can’t be false.

 

It can’t be, can it? No one can act so sincere and yet be false. Even as he sleeps, he clings to her and holds her like he truly loves her. If this is a sham, then surely he wouldn’t unconsciously mumble _I love you_.

 

The sky is a glittering crown of the Earth Mother, bestowing her holy light down onto Rey’s sleepy form. The room is swathed in blues and violets, casting a muted atmosphere. Unease begins to bubble in Rey’s chest, though for what, she isn’t certain. She calmly removes herself from the still asleep Kylo’s embrace, placing the sheets over his clear shoulders.

 

A song, hypnotic and torturous, washes over through her being and into the night. The singer is old and young, optimistic and heartbroken, sick and vigorous. A symphony of contradicting harmonies that shouldn’t embody the same being, yet as Rey carefully walks down the halls of the villa, she only sees one form shifting in the gardens.

 

It’s not in the gardens, Rey reasons, it’s inside the gardens. Under the ground. Or, Rey realizes, it _is_ the garden.

 

Their face isn’t as shapely as a normal human, but by now Rey is well used to the unusual. They are the one casting the glow, their holy light shining life into the black soil. Rey can feel the sand between her toes take a breath, the plants around her suddenly all the more alive. The flowers and vines curve around her, though she only has eyes for the being in front of her.

 

They are beautiful. Handsome and beautiful and wild. It’s hard to tell if the form they have is even physical, or if Rey would pass straight through them if she were to reach out. Before she realizes it, she is doing just that.

 

“Who are you?” She asks, but she knows the answer. They are the very ground she stands on, the fruit she eats in the morning. They are the flowers she weaves into her hair, the pearls and jewels that Kylo gives her. They are the island itself. Hastily, knowing that she is speaking to a Lesser God of the land, she kneels in respect, though is unable to look at anything else.

 

The ghostly head cocks towards her, as though noticing her for the first time. _Rise._

 

The request vibrates within her, the melody not leaving their voice as though stuck to voice an eternal song. She obeys, straightening her back and standing tall.

 

 _Who are you?_ The question she first asks is placed back in her hands. She shifts on her feet, trying not to seem anxious, and responds.

 

“I am, well I think I am, the lady of the manor. Or I will be.” Never once has she thought of herself as Lady Ren until now.

 

 _Is that so?_ Their tone isn’t mocking, simply inquisitive. They make a circle around Rey, observing ever twitch of her fingers, every nervous jitter her flesh makes unwillingly. They have not seen a human in so long, and they are curious.

 

“If- if you don’t mind me asking,” Rey realizes that she may get straight answers from someone for the first time in a month, “when did Kylo Ren settle upon your island?” Because it isn’t Kylo’s island, he and Rey and the servants are symbiotes, if not parasites, for this creature.

 

 _Time is strange for me, little one._ The being looks up at the stars, thinking over Rey’s question. Delicately, they reach over, a single finger outstretched towards her head. Their finger feels like cool water, a tranquil feeling washing over Rey as they touch the center of her forehead.

 

Similarly to Kylo’s probing when he trains her, they quietly ask for permission to peak into her mind. As practiced, she opens up and lets them see her mortality, and how she grew from a child to her adult self over the course of many seasons. There is no judgment with this being, only the gathering of knowledge.

 

 _It wasn’t that long ago. Even by your standards,_ they conclude. _A few seasons, perhaps. Yes._

 

That fact seems odd to Rey, though admittedly everything is odd now. However, that also begs the question, if he had only recently settled down here, and this seems to be his permanent home, how old is he?

 

They look at her, a part of them still within her mind. Rey’s sight blackens, a vision of a boy landing on the island. She doesn’t see his face clearly, but she knows enough to see that he isn’t old at all. His body is sleek and muscular, a beautiful specimen of physical perfection. Rey sees all the seasons that have past all at once, seeing him age as a normal human would. He is closer to her age in the broad spectrum of marriage eligibility.

 

The Island Being pulls back.

 

“Thank you.” Rey means every word. She thinks for a moment, then asks, “Is he ever… visible?” Perhaps they can truly see her husband-to-be through some Other Sight since they technically don’t have eyes. Maybe that is why she couldn’t make out his face clearly.

 

 _He has his own room, a place for him to undisguised himself._ Rey sees the path to it flash through her mind as though planted there.

 

“Thank you!” Rey says again, salty tears beginning to drip down her face. Her stomach leaps with hope and terror, though for the first time she knows she is close to learning about her husband. A part of her is sick at the thought of learning something that she doesn’t want to know.

 

They reach over and touch one of her tears, gently placing the droplet on a large scarlet flower. It glows yellow with life for a moment, then fades. Rey understands that somehow that she repaid them in full, and bows. She walks back to her apartment, dizzy with giddiness. In case she forgets, or thinks that this is a dream, she scribbles a note on her arm with ink from her library’s desk, blowing it dry as she returns to her room.

 

Kylo must have woken up in her absence because the source of his voice is higher than if he was laying down. “Where have you been?”

 

Rey feels her lips pull into a smile. Emotions that she can’t quite place smolder in her chest as she gets back into her bed, meticulously smoothing the covers over her legs before answering. “Out on a midnight stroll.” _You have your secrets, now I have mine._

 

Rey sleeps better than she has ever before, with the echoes of the song-like voice of the island lulling her to sleep in a lullaby she won’t remember come morning.

 

\---

 

 _Wedding planning is decidedly the worst,_ Rey thinks. She is insistent that they at least have a small ceremony on Naboo with her adoptive mother and sisters present, and doesn’t understand why Kylo is so hesitant to agree.

 

“Why not.” Rey isn’t one to beat around the bush and Kylo’s constant dodging of her questions is beginning to annoy her.

 

“I don’t feel comfortable among the mortals.” Is his clipped reply.

 

“ _I’m_ a mortal,” she snaps, rage building into her, “my sisters have a right to witness the ceremony.” When no answer comes, she realizes that he had merely left without a word. Seething, she stabs the quill into the paper, the tip snapping off and ink spilling onto the paper, blotting out the day’s plans.

 

During dinner, she doesn’t speak to him. When they go to sleep, she lays on the very edge of her bed. When he tries to roll over and hold her, she stands up and walks around the bed to the other side. Kylo gets the memo and doesn’t try again.

 

She doesn’t speak to him during breakfast, going out on a walk to circle around the gardens. When she gets back, she doesn’t feel or sense him in any of the rooms she passes through. During dinner, she tersely responds to his questions about her well-being. That night, he doesn’t come into her bed.

 

None of the servants like talking to her, so she is entirely alone when Kylo isn’t present. But she keeps her chin up and studies the texts in his library during the day, trying to distract herself from that conversation with the Island Being. She knows the way to Kylo’s room as though she has always known. Fear keeps her planted in her study, writing lists of things that she knows will never come to fruition.

 

A week of this goes by, and Rey is woken by someone invisible sitting on the edge of her bed in the middle of the night.

 

“K-kylo?” She whispers into the dark, eyes darting for danger.

 

“I can’t take this anymore.” He smells of alcohol and danger, sweat from exertion and something sickly sweet underneath it all. “I can’t. Any of this, I don’t want it. I only want you.” His face bumps against hers in a sloppy kiss, his large frame quickly moving to pin her down.

 

“Wait-” Rey barely gets it out before he’s kissing her again and again and again, his fingers clumsily moving around for the ties to her nightdress. She bats his hands away, pushing on his chest. “Stop. Stop it, _stop it!”_

 

“I don’t want you to hate me, please tell me you don’t hate me.” His mouth is on her earlobe as he hovers over her body, obediently ceasing the touches. He moves back from her, droplets of tears landing on her face.

 

Rey keeps her hands on his chest, keeping him at a careful arm’s length, bracing herself to run if he starts showing signs of disregarding her wishes. “Then you need to tell me where you go when you work. I can’t live like this anymore, Kylo. I can’t. I know you aren’t telling me everything and you know what? It bothers me!” She lets out all the frustrations of the two months boil over, “I don’t know what you do when you go out every day. You come home sore and smelling like perfume and what am I supposed to think about that?”

 

He doesn’t answer. Drawing back from him, she can feel his sorrowful stare as he smothers her with silence.

 

“Well?” Rey demands, trying to draw strength from her anger.

 

“I can’t tell you.” His voice is barely heard over the pounding of Rey’s heart.

 

“Why not?” Rey raises her voice, trying to keep from shrieking best she can. “Why won’t you tell me? You’re just hurting us both!” Her patience is a single thread of cotton, straining against the weight of her silent suffering.

 

“You’ll hate me.”

 

 _“I hate you now!”_ Rey screams, tears bursting from her eyes against her will and sliding down her face.

 

The bed shifts as Kylo gets up, completely silent and almost devoid of life. Rey instantly regrets her words because she _doesn’t hate him, please come back_ but she’s too stubborn to say those things and now she’s alone. She’s alone and sobbing into her pillow, feeling sick to her stomach.

 

She gets up, walks over to her window, and throws up.

 

\---

 

Kylo doesn’t come down for breakfast. Keeping her meal down is a fight, and Rey soon retreats back to her room, hoping to sleep off the illness. Every word she said last night haunts her like an apex predator, scratching and clawing in her mind even though she desperately tries to think of something else. The wine she had Zephyr bring her last night sits on her bed stand, untouched since the argument. Every time Rey debates on drinking it, the queasiness returns and she buries her head beneath the blankets.

 

Eventually, she tries rousing herself, almost feeling well enough to walk. The world seems to spin and she falls back down onto her bed. Her body is telling her to rest, and rest she does. When she wakes, the bright and shining light of the next day’s dawn in shining through her window.

 

Now even more determined to learn of her husband-to-be’s extracurricular activities, Rey begins to plot. She drinks water, managing to quell the stomachache that burns in her throat. She remembers one of the servant girls giving Leia apple cider vinegar for nausea, so once she sits down for breakfast that day, she is sure to ask for it when a servant flutters past. There is a hesitant beat before the wind spirit replies their affirmation of her order, and shortly after a small vial floats down from the ceiling. Rey drinks the sour liquid with lots of water, feeling better after a while. She decides to keep it on hand in case of further episodes like this one.

 

Since there isn’t much to do during the day, as she plans her invasion of Kylo’s privacy during the night while everyone is hopefully asleep, she reads in the library. Time moves so much more infuriatingly slow now that she’s checking the sundial for the hour, nervousness heating her insides. The sickening feeling in her stomach returns as she tries to calm herself, retching into a chamber bot and rinsing her mouth clean. Nothing soothes her. She doesn’t eat anything for the rest of the day, too terrified of running into Kylo or even Zephyr and them recognizing her thoughts to intrude upon Kylo’s room to consider stepping a toe out of her library.

 

Rey closes her eyes and tries to feel her connection with the Earth Mother, opening her mind as Kylo taught her and trying to sense the life around her. She can feel the flittering presence of the servants in the halls, the steady thrum of the island’s heartbeat, and the thunderous part of Kylo’s soul pacing in his body.

 

A small oil lamp is the only thing that Rey arms herself with as she gets up and tiptoes out of her room. She keeps one hand on the wall, guiding her as she keeps her eyes closed and her mind open, looking for anyone who might spy her with the extra eye the Earth Mother provides. The path to Kylo’s room come to her as easily as eating, as though she’s always known, as though not a memory but an instinct. She followed the hall until a seemingly dead end, finding a hidden staircase that has only been used a single time since its installation. Rey doesn’t know how she knows that tidbit, an extra gem of knowledge the Island gave to her, perhaps.

 

She pulls the lever, the door in front of the wall opening, and starts up the stairs.

 

By the time she makes it to the top, the ugly churning inside Kylo has ceased to a dull roar. Rey supposes that means he is asleep and is thankful for that. Especially since she climbed all this way, she’d hate to have to wait a moment longer for him to still if he were still working.

 

The tower is spacious, even more so than the banquet hall, the meager light from the small lamp Rey carries barely able to peak more than a few paces. After a few minutes of wandering, Rey has a decent feel of where she should be going, as the Island’s knowledge has stopped at the entrance. More books than Rey has ever seen in her life lines against the walls, weapons of every imaginable kind decorating what’s in between. Armor on stands of every design stand on a display, all of them the same broad-shouldered size. One of them she recognizes in appalling shock. The same black armor of the creature that had taken her against her will is proudly in the center, in far better condition than the rest. Kylo Ren is especially proud of it. Rey’s throat pounds with her heartbeat, vomit threatening to burst from her throat again. If he is fine with _lying_ to her about this one detail, how far do these little fabrications go? How deep is this story he weaves for her with lies?  

 

This is where his deceit begins to unravel.

 

And all at once, her heart is silenced as grim determination takes over her body. Methodically, as though hypnotized, she calmly walks in the direction she feels the breeze coming from, thinking that if this layout is anything like her room, his bed will be close to the window. Low and behold, after passing by a large table and many chairs, she passes through another archway into an apartment that more or less resembles her own. Everything here is far more sparse than the extravagance offered in the rest of the villa, a simple sitting room that boasts of nothing specially carved, and smaller door frame which Rey knows is the last one she’ll have to pass through.

 

The bed is the largest Rey has ever seen. She remembers that Kylo had mentioned his past before, and the morose pounding in her chest returns at the thought of what it must have been used for.

 

That it still might be used for.

 

She stands where she is, petrified at the thought of what she may find in the bed. A hairy shapeshifter showing his true form, slimy sweat coating the sheets in a thick sheen. A man with a bull’s head like the stories old sailors told her to terrify her from sneaking onto their ships. A beast with a thousand teeth ready to eat her. Or, worse yet, all three sharing the bed with a perfectly normal man expecting her to join in on the carnivorous orgy.

 

<https://padawantimelord.tumblr.com/post/177217677019/an-illustration-i-drew-for-chapter-seven-of-my>

 

Forcing herself to move, she takes a single, trembling step towards the bed. Her eyes play a thousand tricks on her, trying to make monsters from the shadows that dance in the candlelight. Every flicker sent Rey into cardiac arrest, every shutter gave her a stroke. Slowly, steadily, the light paints the form of a single being swathed in blankets, seemingly alone in the bed. Rey breathes a sigh of relief, the need to shed tears at this beautiful revelation almost too much to bear.

 

Carefully, she leans over the bed, sucking in her lungs as she sees Kylo for the first time. He isn’t exactly how she pictured in her head after touching every inch of his body, but somehow she knows his face as well as she knows her sisters’. She remembers the dreams of this man with his sharp cheekbones in between her legs, his lips wet with her slick. His ears pointed and alien to her, his eyes tender with love and admiration. She knows him, she _knows him._

 

Too far she bends over, a droplet of hot oil slips from the lamp and onto his skin. He wakes, shooting up from his sleep, knife in his hand and pointed at her throat. He sees her, standing at the foot of his bed, her face in shock and terror at the sudden aggression he shows.

 

_This is how I die,_ Rey thinks, certain that this is the last straw and he’ll murder and dump her corpse onto Leia’s palace. Rey might actually let herself throw up now.

 

Once he realizes who she is, the horror, then rage cross his features as he stoically takes in her betrayal.  “How.” His voice is cold and sharp, so unlike the gentleness she had come to know. “Did you. Get in here.”

 

“Why have you lied to me?” Rey manages to gather enough indignance not to burst into tears and cry for forgiveness.

 

“How did you find this place? Why did you go against my wishes, Rey?” He throws the knife onto his bed and grabs her arm almost hard enough to bruise, “Why are you hurting me like this? What did I do to deserve your contempt?”

 

“You and your _lies,_ Kylo Ren!” Rey loses any percentage of cool she barely scrounged up at the audacity of his indignance. “How dare you! It was you who kidnapped me, wasn’t it? Why did you lie about that?” When he says nothing to defend himself, when his eyes are on fire with a thousand emotions she can’t place, she continues, “And Zeus, that’s not even true, is it? You only wanted to _keep me here_ , away from my family!” She tries to wrench herself from his grip, but his hands clamp down even tighter.

 

“I don’t deserve this, not from you.” He spews back at her, the ancient powers coursing through his veins. “Not when I taught you how to manage your own soul and abilities. Do you have any idea how many people would kill for the knowledge I’ve provided? Of course, you don’t, you’re a _mortal child.”_ Rey feels like he’s kicking her in the stomach. She wants to crumple but her pride is a terrifying thing, it won’t bow to the likes of him. “I’ve kept you hidden from _her,_ out of _her_ sight. Do you know what I’ve had to do to keep you off her frame of mind?” He shakes her once, hard. “ _Do you?_ Answer me. _”_

 

Fear makes Rey gives the tiniest shake of her head. She had never felt fear for her life this icy and prominent with Kylo, not even when he stumbled into her room drunk. There was always an understanding in the back of her mind that he would never harm her. Now she isn’t so sure.

 

He shakes his head, regret shining in his eyes too deep to speak out loud to her, even now. “You were to be my bride. You would have been so happy, I would have made it so.”

 

“Let go of me, you snake.” She pulls from his hand, his grip loosening to allow her escape.

 

“You say you hate me.” A single piece of vulnerability shines through his bitterness, the last ray of hope he allows himself.

 

“I do hate you.” Rey is certain she does. That is the disgusting feeling in her stomach that scorches like dry acid in her chest.

 

The darkness returns to his expression, a grim kind of acceptance of a broken man who’s long since come to terms with the isolation of his life. “So be it.”

 

With that, wings sprout from his back, the most majestic and fearsome things Rey has ever seen. He takes flight, a fury of feathers and terror, leaving Rey alone to realize what she had just done. She throws up onto the floor, not even bothering to look for a chamber pot or window.

 

She retches, emptying any liquid from her stomach, and retches even more. Fever and delirium ail her mind, she lays against the cold stone floor and sobs, clutching any semblance of consciousness she has in the hopes she doesn’t turn insane.

 

When dawn peaks through the window, Rey wipes the sick off her mouth. “Zephyr.” She says, wobbling to a stand. “Zephyr.” She calls louder, her voice raked with dryness.

 

“My lady.” Their voice is behind her.

 

“Take me home,”  Rey demands, her fists trembling.

 

“What did you do?” Zephyr's voice is terrified, quiet with horror.

 

“TAKE ME HOME,” Rey screams at him, coughing up blood in the back of her throat. Zephyr spares no haste, lifting her up and flying her more reckless than Kylo ever did. She closes her eyes and focuses on not emptying her stomach anymore, gagging every now and then from air sickness.

 

She stumbles down after being all but tossed into her room, laying on the wonderfully cool tile floor. That’s where her sisters find her, half sobbing, suffering from sickness and tormented with visions of a man with wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shit has hit the proverbial fan. 
> 
> THANK YOU dearest readers for all your comments and kudos! It makes my heart so happy to know that you beautiful people love my story. No joke, if I am ever having a sad or especially difficult day I read your comments because if all else fails? I'm a good writer and appreciated by you.  
> Thank you.


	8. Chapter 8

Rey feels people hovering over her, whispering, murmuring, their cool touches relieving her feverish dreams that come and go against her will. There is sometimes a woman, so perfect, so beautiful, that it makes Rey sick to look at her. She isn’t worthy to look at Her. She is a dog, a pathetic and groveling bitch who doesn’t deserve to bask in the goddess’ glory, and, and-

 

She is with the island sometimes too, the land of Kylo Ren somehow concerned about her wellbeing. Rey doesn’t understand why they seem so worried for her, and with something else within her. She doesn’t understand why in her brief moments of consciousness people keep touching her stomach. 

 

She doesn’t understand until she wakes. 

 

The sky is bluer than she’s ever seen, and she has a sudden, uncontrollable craving to be outside.  Rey kicks the blankets off in a weak fervor, pushing the hazy sleep away to move to the window. Her body is thin, her muscles jagged with hunger. Yet, even though she most likely hasn’t eaten in days, her stomach is soft and round as though she had just feasted. 

 

“You’re awake.” Rose is behind her with a bowl of water, most likely to bathe Rey with. Her hair is in disarray, and her eyes hollow with dark circles as though Rey stole all the rest out from under her. 

 

“How long,” Rey takes a deep breath to calm herself, “was I out.” 

 

Rose’s mouth forms a thin line with worry, “Maybe I should get Leia-”

 

“How long.” 

 

“Two weeks.” Rose avoids eye contact, staring instead at the vase to Rey’s side. 

 

Rey touches her stomach in a moment of self-consciousness, panic seizing what is left of her body. “And Kylo Ren?”

 

Rose shakes her head, “I don’t think he’s been here, not that I know of.” 

 

The vase shatters on the far side of the wall, untouched physically. The room rattles as Rey’s terror builds within her. “Did I bleed while I was asleep?” She already knows the answer to the question. Already she can sense the third life within the room, within her. 

 

Rose doesn’t say anything, only setting the bowl down and walking up to Rey, wrapping her arms around the taller girl in haste to calm her. The room stops trembling. 

 

“Let’s get Leia.” It’s not a suggestion, but an order. Rey nods numbly, letting herself be led through the halls. 

 

Yet as she gets closer and closer to the only mother she’s ever known, Rey feels a creeping terror at having to explain, in her own words, what had happened. She can only imagine the disappointment. The familiar, comforting smell of incense becomes stifling, burning her throat as she walks.  

 

Leia is in her office. As soon as the queen sees her daughter, her servants are dismissed with the gentle gesture of her hand. 

 

And they are alone, Rey realizes that Rose had left with the servants. She folds her hands carefully in front of her and stares at the floor, every fiber of her soul ashamed of her body, the weakness of her flesh that put her in this state. 

 

“My dear girl.” Her mother stands, her voice soothing. “We were all worried you wouldn’t wake.” 

 

Rey says nothing in response. 

 

Leia walks over, holding Rey at arm’s length, observing for the kind of damages that physicians can't detect. “My dear girl,” she says once more, pulling Rey close and holding her against her chest Leia did when she was nothing more than a tiny child, abandoned on the docks. 

 

And Rey begins to cry then, loud, choking sobs that shake her very core. She allows herself to release all the pent-up agony that slowly built up over the months she alienated herself from her lover, the anguish at being abandoned and lied to. She finally swallows her stubbornness and acknowledges her own stupidity, babbling barely coherently to Leia about her stupid and rash behavior. 

 

Leia listens, stroking her child’s hair as she confesses like she is soon to die. She waits, patiently, until Rey has let out all she kept to herself, all the heartbreak she has endured. 

 

“You need to sit.” Leia also needs to sit and think about what to do, strategies and paths forming in her mind. 

 

Rey curls up on a cushioned area in front of a large window, her knees pulled up to her chin as though hiding the evidence of her mistakes. Leia sits opposite of her, placing a hand on the small girl.  _ Still a child, _ Leia thinks numbly. 

 

“I’m not going to tell you how to proceed from here,” Leia says, “I just want you to understand that I have been in your position and that I understand. What I am going to do, though, is give you some options that you can choose to take.”

 

Rey nods stiffly.

 

“You can marry quickly. Armitage Hux has been sent by his father not just for goodwill reasons, I’m sure you have figured it out already. It would be a marriage of convenience, and if he is told of the situation beforehand, he might be agreeable.” 

 

Rey resists the urge to vomit at the thought. 

 

“Or,” Leia’s eyes crinkle as she smiles, banishing any panic Rey might have felt, “You can have the child here, of course. The ambassadors and servants may gossip, but let them. You can raise your child in the halls as royalty because any child that my daughter has is my own flesh as well.” 

 

Her daughter smiles only slightly at that suggestion, her eyes far, far away. Leia clears her throat. “There is a plant, that grows up in the mountains... It’s difficult to retrieve, but not impossible. I can arrange for a servant to get it, someone loyal who won’t gossip. Your bleeding cycle will return, and the child will leave along with it.” Leia folds her hands together, carefully. “Just know that you have a limited time to choose this decision. You only have three missed cycles to take the herb safely. If you wait longer to take it, you will die along with the child.” 

 

Rey finally looks over to her mother, a sharp, noncommittal nod is the only indication that she heard.

 

\---

 

Aphrodite strokes his hair, a parody of someone who cares. 

 

She may not be entirely pleased with the way things have turned out, that is true, but having her paladin in such a pathetic state? She would be lying if she said she doesn’t enjoy this, the groveling and the tears and the simpering apologies. 

 

And yet, through the humble requests for forgiveness, this absolute  _ idiotic fucking moron _ has either the courage or the stupidity to beg for something other than mercy. Her fingers which had been so tenderly stroking his bare flesh begin to squeeze that delicate neck of his, that sweet piece of spine that holds up his airway that allows him to breathe. And even as she is wringing his unworthy life away, she feels dissatisfaction at  _ just _ killing him. 

 

No, because  _ just _ killing him is too quick, too fast. She wants him to suffer, she wants him to pull out his own intestines as he screams for her unexisting kindness. He doesn’t care about himself, oh no. Kylo lost self-respect a long, long time ago, Aphrodite made sure of that. But it appears that he has begun to care for something other than her, and she is very determined to find and suffocate that person or thing, and to make her unruly paladin watch. It would be a shame, after all, being the goddess of love and beauty and all, to let such a deliciously tragic story to slip from her fingertips. 

 

She lets him go, gasping from air deprivation. 

 

“I forgive you.” Her lies are sticky and sweet, and he laps them up like the dog he is, unable to taste the bitter ash the words are built on. 

 

\---

 

The nights come and go. Rey is in a constant state of haze, almost unsure of what is going on around her. She doesn’t return to her normal duties, and she can tell that all the servants are beginning to suspect something beyond the courtly gossip. 

 

The deadline for taking the herb is beginning to loom. Jessika clearly thinks Rey should drown herself in the tea it would make, though the others try not to be so firm with what they would do. 

 

It turns out in her absence, Rose became engaged with Finn; the well-meaning merchant boy. It is in the upcoming wedding that Rey suddenly feels some semblance of importance, a half sense of purpose in the chaos that has become her life. Rose has become Rey’s anchor, wherever she goes, Rey goes and inputs her opinion on simple things like flower arrangements and tablecloth embroidery. 

 

The wedding date is set a year from now, as Finn has to go out on another voyage. “A grande payoff,” Rose mutters, trying hard to quell the bitterness in her voice. “Something worthy of a princess. Whatever, you dumb. I don’t care about that stuff.” 

 

“I know, Rose,” Finn says gently, “but once I establish my business, I’ll be able to buy us a villa up in the mountains across the sea like we talked about.”

 

“I don't care about riches or fame! I just want you to be safe, stupid.” Rose punches his arm, not nearly hard enough to hurt. She pops up on her toes and kisses him for the seventeenth time (not that Rey is keeping count or anything), her lower lip trembling with the effort not to cry. “Promise you’ll come back unharmed.”

 

“I promise that no siren, no storm, no mountain, no sea can keep me from my beloved. Once I’m done, I can support us, and any family we decide to start together.” Finn brushes the stray hairs from her face so he can memorize her eye color, how the flecks shift when she’s mad and when she’s happy. 

 

Rey feels odd staring at the couple as they finish their goodbyes, a creeping flood of jealousy beginning to drown her. It’s stupid and useless to be bitter towards her sister’s happiness, and soon guilt pinches her insides. She looks away, staring down at where the island curves, almost burning a hole in the rocks of the island to where the Oracle is. 

 

As though in a trance, she wanders down the docks to the very edge, where wood meets the sea. She sits on the side, plunging her legs into the water, watching the horizon blankly until Rose comes to fetch her. 

 

Rey touches her belly as she leaves, looking back to the beachline. 

 

\---

 

On the last night of her third cycle, Leia meets privately with Rey to make sure she doesn’t have any last minute regrets. And at that moment, Rey feels a clarity like she hasn’t felt since she returned. Determination floods her veins, and she tells Leia what she plans to do. 

 

“Are you sure?” Leia needs to know before she lets her child go out into the world. 

 

“More than I’ve ever been.” Rey’s voice is calm and collected. She has been thinking this over the past three months. 

 

Leia nods, “So shall it be. Take whatever you need, Rey, and know that no matter what happens, you will always be welcome back here.” 

 

Rey holds her mother tightly until dawn begins to creep over the horizon until it is time to leave. Then, along with Leia, she collects enough things for her journey, packing lightly. 

 

Leia and her other daughters escort Rey and her things to the docks. She goes to her sisters and says her goodbyes, Jessika pressing a beautifully smithed dagger into her hand during their embrace. 

 

“I have a feeling you’ll need this.” Jess mutters, her eyes downcast. Tears begin to blot Rey’s vision as she nods her thanks.

 

Kaydel steps up and presses something carefully folded into Rey’s hands. It’s a baby’s blanket, so intricately embroidered with the insignia of Naboo. The tears begin to collect at the edge of Rey’s eyes, quickly spilling over. Her voice is suddenly gone, choked with too much emotion to properly give her thanks, but Kaydel only hugs her, understanding. 

 

Rose is next, offering a simple charm. When they hug, Rose whispers, “The Oracle says to give this to you. She says it will help with your journey.”

 

For Rose to visit the Oracle, someone she feared so ; a, all for  _ Rey… _ Her throat begins to close, nothing more than a whimper escaping, before a cough interrupts her bawling.

 

Slowly, they all turn to the man waiting for Rey departure. 

 

“Are you ready?” Armitage Hux asks, his eyes in that permanent frown he always seems to have. He holds out his arm, a stiff gesture of trained gentlemanliness. Rey takes it as she boards the ship, turning back to her sisters as soon as she boards, waving at them until her arm is unable to hold itself up anymore and the docks are barely dots in the distance. 

 

The voyage is beyond difficult. It exceeds difficult, transcends difficult, goes far and above any connotation that the word ‘difficult’ could possibly describe. Rey has never once wished to cease to exist but as she lays her sun-kissed cheeks upon the railing, she wishes long and hard to just Stop Being. To fade, maybe, to release her being and just . . . . not. 

 

She vomits again, her stomach somehow dredging up a teaspoon of sludge to toss over the edge. 

 

Hux avoids her until her first trimester settles into the second, nausea beginning to fade enough for her to function almost like a normal human. He rarely tries to engage her with small talk, and for that, Rey is thankful. She’s not certain how well she could handle anyone’s company while feeling so ill. 

 

So she is left to herself, and to her thoughts. Unlike Naboo, when she was able to distract herself with the upcoming wedding with her sisters, she doesn’t have anything to do but be sick and stare blankly at the sea and its horizon. All her regrets begin to flow into her heart, bitterness at her situation slowly picking away her original determination at what to do. 

 

Sometimes she hates Kylo Ren.  _ Hates  _ him more than her own parents for abandoning her. Not just abandoning  _ her, _ but their child as well. Rey will never see her unborn baby as a bastard, but that doesn’t mean she won’t become a pariah for carrying them to birth. If she wasn’t Leia’s daughter, if she didn’t have her sisters to care for her, then what would have become of Rey and her baby? Unwillingly, scenarios run through her head. Prostitution would be the easiest route, every corner of her body shuddering at having to give her body up for the slimy merchants who would want a taste. 

 

Sometimes she loves Kylo Ren, too. Her very soul craves for his presence, to be with her and to reassure her that everything is okay, that he will care for their child and her and that he loves her, too. Rey sometimes imagines that he comes, visible or invisible, to take her away. She tells him about their baby and he cries with her from the joy of their love becoming living flesh. They would go back to his villa and begin to build a nursery. Rey wonders if she would insist they try crafting a crib themselves, the way couples do together in Naboo as a right of passage. Sometimes her own mind makes her smile.

 

But the nights are the worst. The nightmares that she can’t remember in the day, the sickening things she knows she does in her dreams. Sometimes when she wakes, she can almost taste a kind of shame that is unfamiliar to her, regret and self-hatred touching her from an outside source. 

 

Mornings come and go in monotonous waves, some coming faster than others but miserable all the same. They arrive a few weeks after the voyage, the outline of Greece is the most beautiful thing Rey has seen in a long time. Though she had grown accustomed to the infernal rocking of the ship, she is delighted to be back on dry ground. 

 

The temples and the open-air feel of the city almost make Rey feel at home. Her eyes quickly spot a large statue a few blocks away, the curve and elegance of which is somehow familiar. She feels a tug, like the back of her mind, wants her to remember something that she’s never seen. 

 

She takes a step towards the city center. 

 

“Off to pay homage to the gods?” Hux asks, placing a hand on her arm. The gesture is meant to be almost romantic, but between them, it is a necessary movement for the facade they built. “I’ll go with you.” 

 

Rey almost bristles at his suggestion, though quickly cools her aggression. Hux isn’t going to be the scapegoat of her rage, though it would be so easy to let out her anger. “I think I can handle myself, sir, but thank you.” 

 

“Rey,” Hux is not a patient man, though she knows he is trying for her sake, “you don’t know the city. This Someone of your rank should not be wandering around a foreign country on their own. Let me or a servant accompany you.” He pauses, then adds, “please,” as an afterthought. 

 

Rey allows one of the younger servant girls to lead her towards the temple. The servant is young, with two cloudy puffs tied on either side of her head. The girl takes Rey’s hand and weaves their way through the crowded streets, expertly ducking into smaller alleyways to avoid the large crowds. 

 

The steps to the temple are low and easy for Rey to climb, even in her state. The four columns in the front are wider than Rey. The servant girl leads her inside, the walls decorated with slabs of pink and green marble mosaics. The patterns on the floor circle around a large fire pit, coals alit with flame. Rey notices a vast array of herbs and grains lining the edge of the sacrificial pyre, strewn about with no kind of organization. The air suddenly feels heavy. 

 

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” Rey turns to the servant girl, though there is no one behind her. A moment of panic has her looking around for where the child might be, but not only is the girl nowhere to be found, there are no acolytes nor priestesses. Even though high noon brightness had been boiling Rey alive on the way to the temple, the open sky that had been bleeding through the open columns has dimmed significantly as though suddenly overcast. The only light sources to allow Rey to see are the many small incense burners along the room and the pulsing of the coals inside the firepit.

 

Slowly, Rey turns back to the pyre to observe the disarray of sacrifices, feeling the stares of the statues in four corners of the temple. Her hand hovers over some of the flowers and opens up her mind to the energy surrounding the temple like a blanket. She works without realizes what she’s doing, her movements guided by something beyond her reach, a memory she never made. The offerings must be arranged in a certain way, pointing the proper directions to be accepted fully. 

 

Last time she was taller as she did this, with darker hair and paler skin. She had to do this in order to serve her goddess, she remembers the orders coming so sweetly from those golden-painted lips. How the reward would be so sweet and so filthy.

 

Only until she finishes, she allows herself to contemplate what she had just done, what thoughts had allowed her to do so. Before she could wonder further, the incense burners go out, as though one single breath blew the flames away. The fire within the pit roars up, consuming the careful arrangement Rey had made. 

 

The flames churn and roar, burning out to reveal a woman standing in the ashes of the offering. Her skin reminds Rey of the volcanic rock on Kylo Ren’s island, so dark that without the dying flames around her feet, she would be fade into the shadows of the temple. The goddess’s hair is long and wide, the tiny curls creating an almost black halo effect around her perfectly sculpted face. 

 

Rey bows hastily, remembering her manners. 

 

“Rise.” Her voice is warm and forgiving, unlike anything Rey had been expecting. When Rey obeys, the goddess regards her with a gentle intensity, looking over the mortal’s form, eyes lowering down to her belly. “You do not know me, Rey of Jakku, but I’ve been watching you since you first started training to harness my mother’s powers.” 

 

“Your mother,” Rey echoes slowly, realizing that this old goddess means the Earth Mother. She can’t remember any other gods from the pantheon beside the Big Three and maybe one or two of the others, so she doesn’t dare try to guess the name and be wrong. “I’m sorry, did you just call me-” 

 

The goddess smiles, interrupting Rey’s question about her name. “She’s taken a liking to you. A lot of time has been invested in your future and training.” 

 

Rey tries not to balk at that. 

 

“I know what you’re here for.” She takes a step off the pyre, her body shifting as though unable to keep her form corporal far from her anchor. “I know that you search for him, the father.” She gestures to Rey’s stomach.

 

“Can you help?” Rey asks, her hands picking at each other from nervousness. 

 

“I’m afraid I can’t. Aphrodite… She has done something to keep me from helping you directly. She’s done it to all of us, so I can’t even send you another way.” 

 

“Aphrodite has him.” 

 

“And she’s keeping him under a tighter leash than ever. If you ever want to see him again, you’ll have to confront her directly.” The goddess encouragingly to her. “You’ll have to be brave, Rey. You’ll have to be strong. But there is a path where you are victorious.” 

 

Rey feels anything but brave and victorious. She’s alone, pregnant with a bastard, and terrified. At least some of the things with Kylo had to be real. She has to at least  _ try _ to get him back. 

 

“Tell me how to fight.” Rey asks quietly. “Please… please.”

 

“You can’t hope to match for her physically, Rey, you have to depend on your mind and gifts. Her paladin has already taught you how to defeat her, you just need to utilize it.” The goddess begins fading. 

 

“Where do I find them?” Rey asks, her eyes beginning to tear up. 

 

“East of the sun and west of the moon.” 

 

Suddenly everything is bright and bustling. Conversations begin to roar in her ears, candlesticks slamming and carts hauling and animals squeaking as the normal thunder of a crowded temple descends upon her. Rey blinks hard, trying to hide her crying as people reappear, the acolytes minding the fire and everyone milling about as though nothing had happened. Someone tugs at her hand and she sees the little servant girl.

 

“We need to go, miss. Master Hux is waiting.” 

 

Rey turns to the girl, the child, and asks, “how long was I gone?”

 

Her face scrunches in confusion. “Miss?” 

 

“Nevermind.” Rey looks down at her hand, a small bundle of lavender clutched between her fingers. “Show me how to get to the villa, then.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone.  
> First of all, I am super sorry this is the first time in months I’ve updated. School and finals and depression all collectively decided to punch me in the metaphorical dick. 
> 
> I’m doing much better now and will try my damndest to get you these chapters back to my normal-ish schedule of every ten days (hopefully?). I'm going to have to update all my other fics as well so it may be a little longer before I get back on track, sorry. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting. You guys are the greatest and thank you for your patience.


	9. Chapter 9

The witch doctor from deep within the African continent stirred a rusting cauldron, the liquid turning a sickly green as he chants something is his raspy voice. His wrinkling hands throw in what might be a human skull, and the bubbling potion turns from green to violet to black. The ancient man’s eyes roll back to his head, and he begins to sway back and forth, imploring a darker set of Earth-Gods to aid him, to power what he is creating.

 

Kylo watches without much interest, an invisible collar snapped around his neck. Numbness has taken root in him, a kind of bitterness that was borne of hope’s ashes. He doesn’t know why he is here, or why Aphrodite is watching the cauldron with a rapt kind of interest that should alarm the old man. Her freckled fingers clutch the invisible threads of his collar to the point where if she were human, her palms would be sticky from blood as her nails pierce her flesh. But she isn’t human, and her goddess-grip on him is not going to cease.

 

After a moment, he decides he doesn’t much care. Rey hates him. That thought almost makes all the bad feelings resurface, if not for the warning tug his merciful goddess gives him. His goddess, the only one who understands him. She’s going to make the terrible, horrible weakness of loving a mortal go away. His feelings aren’t even real, she told him, and he believes her. Why would someone so perfect have reason to lie?

 

The potion goes into a bottle, and Kylo thinks he sees something move in it. Aphrodite accepts the blackened syrup, looking over it with a critical eye. She appears to be satisfied, throwing a bag of payment at the witch doctor’s feet without looking at him.

 

Kylo feels his collar jerk forward, moving from his lounging position at his goddess’ feet to his knees. Her fingers dig into his jaw, prying his mouth open, pouring the potion down his throat. It freezes, burning his tongue with cold, soulless magic. He swallows with some difficulty, Aphrodite smothering him with her hands to make sure he takes it all.

 

Something snaps inside of him. He feels a deeply rooted, carefully hidden emotion simply wither and die in an instantaneous affair. Aphrodite looks him in the eye, her fingernails digging into his malleable flesh. Her grin is something nefarious, but pleasing to Kylo. He’s done something good, he’s sure, to make her smile with such ruthless joy.

 

“You’re free from that witch, my dear paladin.” Her voice is sickeningly sweet, her fingers gently sweeping across his face.

 

“Thank you, Goddess.”

 

\---

 

Living with the Hux family has steadily worked its way up from being uncomfortable to being a nightmare.

 

Rey gets her own room, on the opposite end of the villa from Hux’s. Or… Armitage, as he now asks her to call him. Now that she’s staying with his family, she has to specify which Hux she is speaking to.

 

She always has to be accompanied if she wants to see him, either by a servant or one of Hux’s siblings. It turns out that Armitage’s father works him like a mule, so the times he is available are quite scarce. Typically she would be glad to sit in his office while he studies, just to be around someone familiar. However, she was forbidden by the Hux patriarch.

 

Jessika once mentioned that she thought Armitage acts as though he has a twelve-inch metal rod stuck up his ass, but that is entirely minuscule compared to his father. Even Rey, after everything she’s been through, feels greatly intimidated by Brendol Hux’s commanding presence. Everything is ‘glory for the New Empire’ this and ‘glory for the New Empire’ that.

 

Brendol Hux’s wife is just as terrifying. Every time Rey comes across the ungodly shrill woman in the hallway, she gets an earful of only the most sexist bullshit she’s had to deal with. Rey had not known Armitage to bend the knee to anyone, man or woman, but he ducks his head and goes along with what the leaders of his family demand, rarely putting up any fuss.

 

For tonight’s nightmarish dinner, Rey has taken her seat next to Hux, after being dressed in a reasonably conservative gown that hides her growing belly (for now). The family lounges in long chairs made for their odd sideways posture for eating, while servants bring them out plates and plates of food. Rey barely has a few bites from each plate as the courses come and go. She quickly made the mistake of thanking one of the servants who picked up her plate.

 

“You will not thank the slaves, Rey Amidala.” Brendol Hux’s stern voice criticized her. Everyone immediately went quiet, frozen in place, as eerie as the seconds before a thunderstorm hitting.

 

Rey primly places her cloth napkin on the table. “I wasn’t aware that you are above showing a shred of human decency.”

 

Brendol sets down his spoon, the threatening clatter reverberating across the room. “It is, in fact, about keeping the slaves in their place.” His tone is firm, almost threatening. “Everyone here has their place. I have my place as the head of the household, and you have your place as the wife of my son. Do you know what that entails, Miss Amidala?”

 

Armitage shares a look with her and shakes his head ever so slightly. Don’t engage. Not once has Rey ever taken that advice, and she doesn’t feel like doing so now.

 

Rey knows what the sickening position of a wife is in this particular country, but she keeps her facade of strength up as she recites the rolls of motherhood Leia taught her at a young age. “A woman’s place is to be the rock on which her children and spouse can depend on. Each woman is a minor goddess, as each woman is capable of creating life within their womb. Therefore, their bodies are temples, holy to themselves. Desecration by means of abuse and rape are punishable by death-”

 

“Silence, yourself, girl. This isn’t the happy little island of Naboo, this is the Empire. Do you know what your job is here? To pump out soldiers for our country’s glory.”

 

Rey’s grip on her goblet tightens. She glances around for any kind of help she might get from Armitage or even some of his sisters, but she finds no sense of comradery between any of the pale-faced individuals who lounge around the table.

 

The desire to argue burned within her and the only thing that made her bite her tongue down hard enough to bleed was the gentle kicking of her child within her belly.

 

After dinner, she sits on her bed and stares out the window. Her fingers nervously pick at the dead skin surrounding her nails as she thinks, prays, and wonders what to do. She can’t stay here, but she also knows she won’t find Kylo on her home island. Overwhelming helplessness tries to take her over, but the mindless habit of picking at her cuticles with vigor distracts her with the pain that comes with it.

 

When the moon is high in the sky, she is too exhausted to think further. Rey clutches the pillow to her chest and takes long, gulping breaths to keep from crying as she tries to sleep. She tries to will the same grim determination she previously had, but everything falls short. She is alone and scared in a foreign country, with almost fewer answers than she already had at home.

 

She tries to make a list of things that she knows and the things that she needs to know. Surely there has to be someone in the city she can ask. She just needs to be brave and explore.

 

Though she tosses and turns throughout the night, she barely catches a wink of sleep. As the birds begin to chirp before dawn, she drags herself from the bed and dresses in a plain tunic veil.

 

Rey’s mind is thick with fog, the stress, and sleeplessness beginning to weaken her resolve. Still, she traces her steps through the servants’ corridors and makes her way towards the exit. She rehearses the excuse she has, although she knows that if one of Armitage’s family finds her, words will fall flat and she would be under more scrutiny.

 

She makes it out to the street with little trouble, sounds of the early slaves and servants beginning the day’s work echoing softly through the alley.

 

Armitage’s sister had given her the directions to Aphrodite’s temple with the Hux Family’s signature condescending laughter. “As if your god could ever make Armi like common riffraff like you, but you may certainly pray if it makes you feel better.”

 

Rey’s fists curl at the memory, but she follows her mental image of the city. Unfortunately, it turns out that the love goddess’ temple is nearly on the opposite side of the town square, requiring a good long walk to get there. With the unfamiliar dangers of the foreign people, Rey pulls her veil tighter and walks closer to the walls.

 

As more and more people begin to rise for the day, the city starts to slowly show more signs of life. Carts begin to rattle with wares as sellers make their way to the markets, animals crow and shriek as their shepherds herd them to the butchers, and people head over to have their morning baths.

 

Rey sees the temple once she’s past the city amphitheater. The second she sees the statue of the goddess, she feels a bout of morning sickness so harsh she has to sit down at the edge of the fountain and breath. Every hair in her body wants to stand on end, every cell within her overwhelmed with a terrible sense of danger.

 

As nausea passes, Rey gathers herself up and stands. Every bit of her mortal body vibrates with fear, the presence of a higher predator sending adrenaline through her bloodstream.

 

Even her baby kicks in distress. Her baby has dealt with all this emotional turmoil and has suddenly decided to insert their opinion. Rey has heard of women who miscarry from so much change and terror, yet her baby is still going on strong. Like their momma.

 

Without thinking, her hands press up against her belly. “I won’t give up,” she promises fiercely, a new wave of determination filling her. Her baby responds with a more gentle kick, as though a response to her proclamation.

 

With her head held high, she walks calmly into the temple. A cold, dead-eyed statue of Aphrodite stands firm on the far side of the entrance, several other depictions of other, lesser love gods lining the walls. One of them looks almost strikingly familiar to her.

 

The statue of the old goddess looks down on her in disdain, as though through its stone eyes, Rey is being watched. Every hair stands on the back of her neck, and though logic told her that she shouldn’t worry, the part of her that awoke and was nurtured through Kylo Ren’s training is telling her something else. That something is wrong.

 

“Well, well, well.” A cold voice echoes all around her, shadows growing and churning around her. Rey spins to face the statue, which now stands in the fires. “What do we have here?” The lips of the marble don’t move as the being speaks, the face blank.

 

Rey stumbles backward, slipping on her dress and falling to the floor. When she looks up at the statue again, it’s out of the fire, facing her. Blood smarts Rey’s mouth from biting her lower lip as she stands to face her opponent. Face blank, princess posture, Rey thinks to herself, folding her hands carefully in front of her.

 

“Aphrodite.” Rey knows of the old love goddess, a deity long erased from the soil of Naboo by the founder queen.

 

“Careful, child. Names have power.” The goddess says through her statue, the negative energy rolling off of it in waves so thick Rey almost feels suffocated. Rey knows deep down that this is barely a fraction of this diety’s power, that it is a miracle unto itself that she and her baby haven’t been reduced to ash. There has to be a reason, and Rey is terrified to find out.

 

“I offer my services.”

 

Aphrodite is too surprised to smite her. “Excuse you?” laughter begins to roll across the room, originating from every statue representing the goddess. “Child, I don’t believe I heard you correctly?”

 

Rey resists the urge to let out the pent-up energy from terror building between her eyes. “I offer myself up to you, oh high goddess of love and devotion.”

 

Aphrodite radiates amusement. “I am impressed enough to actually hear you out.”

 

“I wish to become your paladin, oh Holy One.” Rey bows slightly, placing her final gamble down onto the pantheon’s table.

 

For a long while, Aphrodite says nothing. When Rey risks a glance up, the marble statue is right in front of her, and through its serene face and empty eyes staring into the distance, Rey knows Aphrodite is watching every twitch, every hair on her organic body. Sweat threatens to break out on her skin.

 

The goddess bursts out laughing. There is nothing sweet about it, and Rey wants nothing more to run and hide, but she stays planted where she is. “Well, then, I suppose I can’t refuse such a beautiful voice.”

 

Rey blinks, and when her eyes open the statue’s hand is gripping her chin painfully. “A beautiful face, however?” Aphrodite muses, “Perhaps only to those who have not gazed upon the divine.”

 

“You said there were tests,” Rey tries gracefully changing the subject, hoping the fingers digging in her skin would release.

 

“Oh, of course, of course.” The ground shakes, the temple’s ceiling threatening to collapse as Aphrodite releases her grip. Rey closes her eyes and holds her hands overhead, but nothing happens.

 

The air smells different. Rey opens her eyes to a cavern, crisp, faint light bleeding in through large holes on either side. No, not a cavern, she realizes, but a villa of monstrous proportions. Columns thicker than tree trunks sprout from the ground, receding into a ceiling so high that Rey can’t see it through the clouds of mist churning above.

 

“This is where your first test begins.”

 

Rey turns toward the voice, but instead of a statue, a woman stands. She is flawlessly terrifying to behold, her skin harshly free of all blemishes and imperfections. Aphrodite’s hair is a thick and wavy black, flowing all the way to the floor. Her eyelids are slightly upturned, her irises a shade of glittering orange that sends shivers of fear run through Rey’s body.

 

“I’ll start with something straightforward since you haven’t much experience.” Aphrodite waves her hand, a pile of grains appearing in front of her. “Sort these before sunrise.”

 

Rey looks at the pile of grains, nearly as tall as she, and despair begins to twist her insides. “If I fail?” Her voice is numb.

 

“Then you get to partake in my festival!” Aphrodite’s smile grows bloodthirsty. “As the sacrifice.”

 

The goddess disappears, leaving Rey alone, the echoes of her breaths bouncing from the columns and walls.

 

Rey sinks to her knees, eyes filling with tears. This was impossible, there could be no way anyone could ever do this, there is no way she could ever do this.

 

Her fingers grasp a piece of grain, staring at it carefully, trying to will all its sisters to fall into place. Nothing happens, not that she is expecting anything magical to get her out of this situation. Perhaps she was better off with the- she nearly vomits- Hux family.

 

Trying to keep her emotions under check, she pinches herself to keep from crying and gets to work. As she separates the small grains into piles, she spots an ant coming in to check out the food. And then another. And then another… a whole trail of ants follows their sibling up to the pile of grains. Rey watches as they begin to dig through, curiosity forming as the ants don’t just take their prizes and leave. The grains begin to shift as the insects moved in groups with one purpose.

 

The pile of grain began to slowly separate as the ants continued working. Rey kneels, eyes dancing around as her task gradually becomes complete. The ants finished as the cracks of first sunlight begins to shine in through the windows.

 

Aphrodite appears, as sudden as a blink.

 

She calmly looks over the sorted piles of grain, her flawless body not giving any signs of anger, yet Rey’s skin nearly roasts off from Aphrodite’s radiating aura.

 

“I see that you have managed to do something this simple,” Aphrodite grinds out, “of course, the next challenge will be much more difficult.”

 

\-----

 

  
Entertainment to the goddess of love is the drama of esteemed mortals being disgraced in horrendous ways. Stories like Minos’ wife, who was bewitched into loving a bull and gave birth to a hideous creature, both beast and man. It was a shame that Kylo Ren’s little harlot bitch decided to make everything overly difficult.

 

Nobody takes betrayal very well, not even heavenly beings. With gods, well-thought revenge can take generations of calamities to fulfill, and Aphrodite has nothing but time and an arsenal of unsavory powers at her disposal. She’s not going to allow this plain-faced wench to be a thorn in her side much longer.

 

Aphrodite decided she needed a well-deserved break, after dropping that little harlot in the middle of the mountains to harvest the golden fleece of the native sheep. She sits in her bed, ridding herself of the bothersome tunic with a single flash. Normally, she’s striptease for anyone, including her own self in the mirror, but on a day like today, she forgoes all the luster and just wants to be ravished by her raven-haired trophy.

 

Her attention falls on Kylo as he stirs, the chains attached to his collar rattling as he wakes. The chains are overly decorative, laden with jewels and black, shiny metal, the cuffs on his wrist almost too beautiful to be anything but ornamental. He sits up, the cloth she put him in barely covering his modesty, and opens his eyes. The coal irises that used to burn with so much ambition have faded significantly, and when he looks at Aphrodite, his goddess, the fervor is no longer there.

 

Perhaps the fervor had faded over time with his mistress, but Aphrodite expected it to return in full after the potion. It was somewhat discouraging that it has not yet happened, however as long as she doesn’t allow him to so much as look at another person for another decade, he’ll probably be back to writhing just at the sight of her heavenly body.

 

She pulls him up using the chain and kisses him on the mouth. He doesn’t fight or flinch away. However, he doesn’t return the kiss. Aphrodite grips the end of the collar and pulls him into bed with her. 


	10. Chapter 10

“Do you see the flock over yonder with your week mortal eyes?” Aphrodite asks Rey, arms crossed and facing the fields across the river where they landed.

 

“Yes,” Rey says cautiously, realizing the shiny golden shapes in the distance were sheep of some kind.

 

“You will cross this river and fetch me their wool by nightfall,” Aphrodite instructs, vanishing without further instruction.

 

The river churns below her feet, the spray from the rapids like little frozen kisses on her skin. The first item on today’s agenda would be to figure out the safest possible route to cross it. Though Rey starts walking along the edge, hoping to find a calmer stretch or at least a crossable bridge, there is nothing to see.

 

Of course, Rey can give it to Aphrodite to force her into impossible situations. Though Rey had little experience in the goddess’ field of control, she thinks back to when she found Kylo Ren, how he wailed that everything was an effort of protection against 'her.' The woman Kylo mentioned must have been Aphrodite, there is no doubt in Rey’s mind. If the Harvest Goddess hadn’t mentioned it, Rey would have probably struggled to guess.

 

It is incredibly difficult to put together the pieces of the story herself, especially since she is unable to receive help from anyone knowledgeable. But at the moment, she can’t let herself ponder when the sun is slowly making its way across the sky.

 

Rey concentrates on the foam, the way the water rushes past, the individual drops of water that the river carries. And gently, she begins to push back. A path slowly parts for her, safe from the dangers of rapids, and she steps off the stones surrounding the river. The damp sand and pebbles wedging into every crevice her dusty sandals offer. Her concentration is steady, and the wall of water stays put. Though pressure begins to build from the oncoming river, she only has to walk a few more meters to get to the other side.

 

“Excuse me, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” A face appears in the water, poking out through Rey’s concentration and getting far too close to her for immediate comfort.

 

Rey lets out a shriek, the water breaking through her barrier and crashing around her. She doesn’t get a chance to take a gulp of air before she is submerged, her ears filling with the roar of the currents. Hands struggle and slip against the rocks as she tries to reorient herself.

 

Lungs try to cough, but there isn’t any air to aid them. Rey is floundering even more desperately, eyes wide open to see murk and pebbles, light coming in from all sides and confusing her even more. Only when her vision starts to blotch into darkness is she pushed from the froth, pressure from the current suddenly shifting. Rey flies out of the river as though it merely spat her out, and lands roughly on the other side of the bank.

 

She takes a moment to retch, water and vomit coming out as she gurgles and coughs to purge herself. There is not much in her stomach to get rid of, a painful reminder that she hasn’t eaten anything since two nights before. When she’s finished, wiping her mouth with the hem of her skirt, she looks over back to the river.

 

A woman sits in the middle of the rapids, which is odd in the fact that she is not being pulled under by the currents. Another unusual thing about her is that her skin is green, and not as though she is sick. Her flesh is like a lazy afternoon in the meadow, a shade that reminds Rey of the fields of grass that grow along the cliffs of Naboo. The woman’s hair twists in two different, long tails that disappear from Rey’s view, behind the woman’s neck.

 

Her hands are shaking, from anxiety or hunger, she doesn’t know. Maybe both. She presses her fingers up to her stomach and feels, fear for losing her baby nearly paralyzing her. There! A second heartbeat gently thrums through her nerves. Faint, but steady. Rey almost vomits again from relief, her eyes filling with tears. She begins to bawl like a child, all the pent-up energy and panic flushing out of her system as she lets go, lets herself be succumbed by the sadness and cries.

 

“Holy- holy mother of- I’m sorry, okay? You just can’t fucking stop my river like that, honey. My water’s got places to go.”

 

“I-I’m sor- sorry.” Rey hiccups, sobbing harder. She feels utterly pathetic, and that just makes everything worse. She realized now that she had lost her shawl, and gods know how far downstream it is. “I just- I just needed to cross to get the wool so I can get my lo- lover back from the gods.” Rey hadn’t really spoken about this to anyone, and spilling her guts after spilling her lungs and stomach wouldn’t really hurt anyone in this situation.

 

Rey nearly jumps out of her skin, since she didn’t realize the water spirit had walked over to her. A watery hand awkwardly pats her on the back. “There. There.” The nymph says, almost in a monotone, struggling to convey sympathy.

 

When Rey manages to cease her crying, or at least quiet her sobs to soft little hitches of breath, she sits up and picks at the edge of her tunic. The tips are a little torn, though any dust and grime from the previous day had been power washed away. “Thank you for listening. But I have to go fetch the wool now.”

 

The nymph arches her eyebrows, “Do you have a death wish?”

 

“Excuse me?” Rey hiccups.

 

“The Sol-Sheep are carnivores. The moment they see you getting close, they’ll tear your flesh apart.”

 

Rey looks over to the fluffy, adorable little puffballs that dot the valley. “You- well, how do I fetch their wool, then?” Her voice is raw and weak, though she does not doubt the Nymph for a moment. She wouldn’t dare put Aphrodite above sending her on a suicide mission.

 

“Look over at the thistle bushes.” The nymph points a dripping finger over to the border of the fields. “To keep the sheep from wandering off, Helios made a border of thorns to deter escapees. Sometimes, the enthusiastic ones get caught and get all tangled up in the brambles. You should find some tufts of wool there.”

 

“Thank you!” Rey hugs the still dripping nymph. She will later chalk it up to the strange emotional tendencies women tend to get when they are with child. “What’s your name?”

 

“Oola.” She awkwardly pats Rey’s hair, effectively drenching her again. “Please don’t mention it ever again, okay? Just get out there and do what you gotta do.”

 

Rey sniffs and nods, standing on her shaking feet. She wanders over towards the thorny bushes, glancing back to the river to get approval from the nymph. But Oola is gone from her sight, probably having melted back into her stream.

 

True to the Nymph’s word, there was plenty of wool to collect. As the sky turns a vibrant pink to kiss goodbye the lowering sun, Rey’s arms were full of glittering puffs. She carefully made her way back to the river to wait for Aphrodite’s appearance.

 

Just after Rey began to contemplate of Aphrodite meant to leave her there, she appears in a blinding flash.

 

When Rey’s vision clear, she quietly wishes to go back blind. Aphrodite does not look the slightest bit pleased that Rey succeeded in her task. Not even slightly pleasantly surprised.

 

“Alright, congratulations.” She grinds out, her voice sounding like she is instead cursing Rey’s decedent line, “Wonderful. Splendid. Well, if you have managed to complete something as simple as this, the next task shouldn’t be any more trouble, now, will it.”

 

Rey is shaking even more now, most likely from hunger, as the goddess grabs her by the arm. Rey closes her eyes as she feels her molecules dissipating as they teleport to a new location. She’s carelessly thrown onto the ground when she rematerialized and quickly checks to see if her baby is still there.

 

A metal object clanks against the back of her head, and she sees all white for a moment. Her head aches deeply, and once her vision clears, she sees a chalice by her side.

 

“Fetch me some water from the River Styx,” Aphrodite says carelessly, gesturing in a general direction.

 

Rey picks up the chalice, bitterness choking on her tongue.

 

\---

 

There is a room within his goddess’ fortress that many of the servants avoid, whether because they know of the contents or because they have been forbidden, Kylo doesn’t know. He just understands that this is the most isolated place that his chains will allow him to be.

 

The entrance is somewhat out of sight, tucked off to the side in one of Aphrodite’s many statue niches. He had found it long ago, while he was still a little boy. Before his innocence faded away with his goddess’ caresses and kisses.

 

Darkness swathed the windowless room in deep purples and blues, the only light emanating from an orb carefully balanced on a marble platform. At first, if you look at it, it seems as though it’s merely a globe model of the Earth. If you look closer to the orb, you can see movement, as the clouds and seas swirl in chaos and harmony with nature and winds.

 

It took many times of trial and error for little Kylo to figure out how the sphere worked. Well, that, and the training Aphrodite gave him to be able to harness the Earth Mother’s power. He supposes, in a way, that this is an extension of the Earth Mother, a visual representation of what is happening in her being.

 

Kylo sits comfortably on one of the many cushions and peers into the world, opening his mind and attaching it to the sphere. He just has to think of someone, his spirit will be read and he will be shown what he desires. But his soul aches with a sorrow he cannot name every time her smile comes to memory. It hurts to even remember her, remember the way her hair fell when she read, and how she laughed with her sisters, and the way her mouth thinned when in concentration, and how her skin was hot against his, and when she would accomplish something profound, the way she would look at him, triumphant, and eager for his approval.

 

He aches, and he does not know why.

 

He does know, perhaps. Because he should not be feeling these things. Because his goddess should only have those parts of his mind. Because those feeling he had for her were erased. Because she hates him, and he should hate her in return but does not.

 

He can’t find it in himself to hate her. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how many times he tries to bathe in the memories of her sins. For every painful thing she has done, ten better memories slam into him with more force than the last.

 

The way her hair smells just after she bathed. The silly nonsense she would mumble in her sleep. Her breathy whines when his tongue found that one spot in her core that made her back arch just so. How hot and slick she felt wrapped around his cock.

 

His voice is coarse and rough, desperation and pain muddling his efforts to speak for the first time in a long while. “Rey.”

 

At first, the orb does nothing. He is afraid that his faded memories serve little help to the Earth Mother in locating her, but the globe suddenly zooms in.

 

There she is.

 

His body is a clash of emotions that should not mix. Apprehension at seeing her for the first time in a while. Terror at what her state might be. Relief to know that she is in one piece, more or less. Thirst as he observes the contours of her body, easy to see through the dripping tunic she wears. Yearning burns through his blood, through his soul. To be able to tangle his fingers through her hair, he would do anything. Everything.

 

Shame follows, swift and merciless. She is dangerous because the mere sight of her has made Kylo forget his eternal debt to his goddess. Aphrodite made him, trained him, bled him, and raised him. He owes everything to her, yet he is so quick to brush his goddess aside for this human waif. A pool of disgust drowns him as he can’t even tear his eyes away, as he painstakingly remembers every place on Rey’s body he kissed.

 

It was not enough kisses.

 

He watches Rey hold a heavily jeweled chalice, her sweet lips turned down into a frown. Her forehead furrows in concentration as she peers over the edge of a cliff. Wailing comes from the chasm, long and painful. He adjusts the view so he can see what she is seeing, and his heart sinks with fear once he realizes where she is.

 

The souls of those departed drifted down the currents on Chiron’s raft, the black water choppy but easily handled for the experienced boatman.

 

What is Rey doing at the River Styx? What could she need from it? He watches every twitch she makes, every tick, every flinch. Her hair is in tangles, her usual hairstyle of three buns down to only one. The edges of her tunic are too jagged, something must have ripped part of it off. Cuts and bruises dot her skin, as multitudinous as her freckles. Her body is a confusing mix of gaunt and swollen, her chin sharper than he remembers, but her belly soft and protruding.

 

She seems to be in deep thought. Suddenly, her leg swings over the side of the cliff.

 

Oh no.

 

If he had taken to biting his nails from nervousness, he would have torn them off. Her feet find purchase, her hands find crevices. She’s clumsy and desperate and should not be doing that. She could fall into the river, and gods know precisely what happens to those who find themselves in that unwanted position.

 

Without thinking, he jerks against his chains as she slips. Quickly, she catches herself, but Kylo’s heart might just rip from his chest. What can he do, what can he do?

 

“Zephyr.” He calls for his west wind, his right hand. He calls for her aid.

 

\----

 

Rey decides that she might as well through herself off the cliff when the chalice is knocked away by a strong gust of wind. She watches it fall into the river, numb from feeling, as it disappears into the murky water.

 

Great.

 

She hauls herself back up to the top- not that she managed to get very far in the first place- and tries desperately to think of a plan B. Where could she get another cup? Surely Aphrodite is rich enough that one emerald chalice is nothing to her. Oh, but she would definitely hold it against Rey somehow. This would cause her to fail.

 

Hunger dulls her mind, making her thought process nothing but loops of a racing track. Her fingers shake as she tries to tie back her hair, the gesture only a habitable comfort. She doesn’t feel up to crying again, she had spent her last tears with Oola.

 

She’s in a place that is neither dusk nor dawn. The sky had not changed since she arrived, the very center of the dome above dots with stars. However, the horizon bleeds a warm orange that hints of sun, swirls of a deeper red fading and accenting like living clouds. But the twilight is coming from every direction, north, west, east, and south. Rey quickly figured that she must be in an other-place, an in-between crevice between human and god. 

  
The canyon comes to an abrupt end, and she can see the entrance of a cave near the bottom. The rocks are dull and gray, not like the majestic black volcanic cliffs of Kylo’s island, which she finds herself missing dearly. The river spills into the mouth of the underground. The breeze whistles, a sound like horrible moaning coming from deep within the cave. Rey bites her lips, convincing herself it’s just the water and wind hitting the rocks just right.

 

Though she sincerely hopes to find something to eat, like berries or nuts, but sees nothing living in her immediate area.

 

When she turns around to look back at the chasm, the chalice is sitting there, on the edge. The first thought that comes to her mind is that the grail had some kind of spell on it, to send it back to its owner. But that would be ridiculous, Aphrodite would rather rip out her own cunt than make anything easy on Rey.

 

Cautiously, she picks it up, realizing that it is full to the brim. She sucks in her breath, shaking now for an entirely different reason.

When Aphrodite appears, Rey is certain a blood vessel bursts in the goddess’ forehead. Well, if it is possible for a god to burst a blood vessel. Do gods even have blood vessels? Aren’t they full of something other than blood?

 

The goddess explodes in a rage. She smacks the chalice away, spilling the precious water as it bounces against the dirt. A few drops get onto Rey’s dress, sizzling as the acidic liquid burns through the fabric easily. Rey gulps at the sudden knowledge of the danger she had previously been put in. If she had slipped any more during her climb…

 

Her arm bursts with pain as Aphrodite grabs it. “Since you’re already here, why don’t you run down to the Underworld for me?” She smiles too broad, and Rey suddenly wishes she is somewhere else.

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

A box appears in Aphrodite’s hand. “Bring this down to Persephone.” With a flash, the goddess is gone.

 

Excellent, full instructions that Rey has been getting. Maybe if she appeals to other gods, they’ll get Aphrodite to back down?

 

Rey remembers the minor Earth Goddess she had previously met, how she had told Rey that Aphrodite had done something to keep the other gods from interfering. She feels the small bit of hope she allowed herself smashed to bits.

 

The cliff doesn’t look so climbable now that she knows what waits for her at the bottom. Rey picks up the chalice, the only thing of value she has, and with the little box, decides to head upstream in the hopes that there will be a better way down.

 

She walks. When she gets further from the cave, she starts seeing little bursts of life. A dry patch of grass. What looks like a nest, made of stones and twigs, settled in the cracks of the rock. The sky stagnates in its unearthly appearance, refusing to let either the sun or moon to rise. Or perhaps, this place is beyond either.

 

Smog begins to swirl around her now bare feet. Rey doesn’t remember where she lost her sandals, probably sometimes while she was busy drowning in Oola’s river. Rey feels the ground beginning to incline lower, and through the fog, she sees a steady stream of mist going straight up.

 

Her ankles sting, a dull throb at first but has since decided to be a more prominent ache. Rest is a priority, Rey decides, walking towards what she realizes is smoke. Her mind is so fragile she can’t even think straight, the only thing sharpening her attention is the acidic pain burning her feet.

 

The smoke is coming from a cottage, right where the cliffs become less steep, turning into a smooth and easy hill to walk down. The walls are made of stone and mud, the ceiling converging into a dome. In the front of the cabin is a garden, with plants that Rey is unfamiliar with. The bank of the river is a few yards away, and a dock stands steadily against the water’s aggressive corrosion abilities.

 

Nervously, Rey knocks on the door.

 

There is a loud clattering on the other side. Heavy footsteps steadily follow, and the door suddenly swings open to reveal a grizzled old man. He doesn’t seem especially happy to see her, though that could just be his surprised face. The man wears black robes, clean, and pressed. He doesn’t look like someone who’s been just barely surviving in this purgatory world, nor does he feel like a god. His essence actually feels familiar. As though he bears a striking resemblance to someone she knows, but she can’t figure it out, not now.

 

“What do you want?” He barks, eying her suspiciously.

 

Rey answers by fainting on his doorstep.

 

\---

 

“That insignificant little slut.” A priceless vase shatters as Aphrodite throws it against the wall. “How-” _smash_ “is she-” _smash_ “completing _these tasks_.” A statue of her husband, Hephaestus, topples over and breaks into three pieces.

 

Kylo watches with disinterest, sprawled naked on her bed. He knows how her cycles of rage work, once she’s finished screaming insults that no one but he will hear and destroying most things in her nearest vicinity, she’ll want him thrusting into her. She likes playing with him roughly when she gets worked up like this. Tomorrow he’ll be covered in bruises and cuts, but at least she’ll be less likely to search him out if she overfills her sexual appetite tonight.

 

True to his predictions, she storms over to him and yanks his collar, his skin protesting with the force she uses. “Tell me,” Aphrodite snarls into his mouth, “that you hate that little whore.”

 

“I hate her.” Kylo responds automatically, merely parroting his goddess’ words back to her without an ounce of feeling.

 

“LIAR.” She screams, shaking him, “If you hate her, why did you take her? Why did you _fuck_ her?”

 

Kylo doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. Aphrodite shrieks, smacking him across the face. The pain is terrible, but he knew it was coming. Even so, his eyes blur and he has trouble telling his lungs to breath. Hands, suddenly gentle, stroke at his hair.

 

“I know it was the arrows.” Her voice, suddenly soft and motherly whisper in his ear, her lips dropping to his neck to kiss it. “I know you would never defile my name like that on purpose. I know.” She whispers I know over and over again, licking and kissing to make his wound better. Her fingers find his cock, and she coos at the length and admires his girth as though this is her first time seeing it.

 

His vision clears, but she’s moving him so that he’s laying flat on his stomach. A thousand ways she could hurt him go through his mind, but there’s no use in predicting pain if there is no way to stop it. He reminds himself he just has to endure it for tonight.

 

“Even now, though, with your leash keeping you so close to me... “ Something cold traces the edge of his spine, “I fear that you will fly away and leave me for good.”

 

Fear begins to settle in his stomach. The dagger she holds begins to make its way up to his back. “Such marvelous things I made for you, Kylo. I thought that you would respect the responsibility I gave you when I sprung them from your back. I see I was mistaken.”

 

“Please-” Kylo knows it is useless to beg, but he tries to anyway.

 

“Shhhhhh, don’t make this harder than it has to be.” One could mistake her voice as gentle, but Kylo knows her better than that. Her fingers snap, and the chains tighten, holding him in place so that he doesn’t struggle. “The more it will hurt if you do.”

 

She straddles his back and holds one of his wings firmly with one hand. His body struggles, all on instinct, but the goddess proves to be stronger. The dagger plunges into the muscle.

 

Black splots his vision, and he prays to lose consciousness quickly. However, his body still holds onto the hope that he will break away to flee, somehow. Everything sharpens, and he can smell his own blood running from the wound.

 

The knife hasn’t gone all the way through. Aphrodite holds him steady as she saws, seemingly slowly for effect, back and forth to tear bone and feathers away from his body. Just the _sounds_ coming from his flesh nearly makes him vomit; the cracking of his bones, the meat ripping away from the rest of his body. He screams, as with one final, sickening twist, she breaks what remained of the joint.

 

“My, my,” Aphrodite says with a sick sense of pride. She is holding up his severed wing, admiring her handiwork. “I do always surprise myself with my craftsmanship.” A dull thud tells Kylo that she simply tossed it away, with little regard for what she had just done. “On to the next one, now.”

 

It hurts even more than the last one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew a cover (or conclusion?) of for this story!
> 
>  
> 
> <https://padawantimelord.tumblr.com/post/177355740149/a-cover-i-drew-for-my-reylo-fic-crimson-sunrise>  
> 


	11. Chapter 11

It hurts, more than any physical thing has hurt him before. The dull ache still resonates inside him, echoing through his muscles as though he is hollow. The sharp, burning pain from the knife had evolved into a mute throbbing, and every so often it would feel like a knife is raking across his back again. 

 

Aphrodite had put it upon herself to nurse him back to health, and though she has very little knowledge of how to handle wounds, she fancies herself as an expert in everything. She coos and pets him as though he were a wounded bird she found on her doorstep. After what she had just done, just the sound of her voice made him sick. 

 

There was blood everywhere immediately after she finished amputating. Kylo could smell it, hot and slick, running down his body and soaking the sheets. Aphrodite had pressed the cloth of her tunic onto his back, attempting to tame the bleeding, but she was too late to keep him conscious. His vision had blacked out, and he thankfully lost consciousness. She must have rubbed a kind of ointment on his back because he awoke the next day, the smell of herbs overpowering the rusty smell of blood. 

 

He refuses to look his goddess in the eye, even as she leaves for her Olympian duties. Kylo used to accompany her to visit the gods, being eye candy for those who need him during the drab ‘ _ you do this, you do that, and Hera please stop killing my side bitches _ ’ meetings. Often times he would sneak off and get all the juicy gossip from any servants who eyed him lustfully. The servants always know everything, and they are very loose-lipped after the act of sex. 

 

Again, he thinks of Rey. Wishing her cool fingers would rub his sore muscles while she tells him about her home, letting her voice wash over everything else. He closes his eyes.

 

His wings hurt. His hand reaches around to find out the problem, but grasp at nothing. Eyes open as he is once again faced with the fact that they are gone, forever. His gaze falls onto the far end of the wall, where someone pinned his wings on the wall like a butterfly. A reminder of his betrayal, and the price it bought.

 

There is only one position he can lay for the least amount of pressure on his wounds; on his stomach. No one could have predicted how badly the surrounding area of the wings would hurt. If any of his back muscles pull a certain way, the gashes will open again, and there isn’t anyone here to help stop the bleeding. Aphrodite must have forbidden any of the servants from entering the room.

 

There is a glass of water on the bed stand, but Kylo can’t muster the energy to reach for it. Even though his throat is dry and parched, he lays his head back down and falls back asleep. 

  
  


\---

  
  
  


A kettle whistles loud enough to wake her, but Rey can’t even muster the energy to open her eyes. Her head is laying on a fucking pillow, so goddamn fluffy and comfortable she might cry if she moves. A thick, warm blanket is wrapped around her body, her hands tucked at her sides. This is the most peaceful she’s felt in so long, she allows the moment to stay, to rest for as long as possible. 

 

Domestic noises come from below her, the clanking of pots and pans, running water, and the sound of something steadily boiling. Someone is muttering to themselves, the soft scratching of paper making its way to her ears. 

 

Usually, Rey can ignore food in the desire to sleep more, but she rolls out of bed, her pregnant nose unable to ignore the smell coming from the kitchen. As she sits up, she observes that she is in a little loft, sacks of food surrounding her, stacked neatly against the wall and under her bed. 

 

Her box and goblet are set at the foot of her bed. Rey has to touch them both to reassure herself that they are there, solid, and with her. She quickly runs her fingers over the base relief carvings that decorate Aphrodite’s box, before putting it back with a relieved sigh. 

 

As she places her feet against the stone floor, they sting. She takes a good look at them and realizes that they are covered in blisters and cuts, some oozing pus and others bleeding. Tears smart her eyes as she tries testing a portion of her weight on them. 

 

She sits at the edge of her bed and ponders her situation. As she looks over her body and assesses the full about of damage, she realizes that not just her feet are injured. Her entire body is peppered with cuts, some worse than others. She fiddles with the torn end of her tunic, trying to gain the courage to walk down the little step ladder in front of her, where the soft glow of fire illuminates a small workspace.

 

A man sits at a desk, a stick with its end charred for writing in his hand. He is furiously muttering, scribbling onto a scrappy paper, moving to consult with a thick, ancient book. Without looking up, he says to Rey, “The tea is ready.”

 

Now or never. Rey stands, her feet aching like there is no tomorrow. Her belly makes it all the more difficult to maneuver over the edge to climb down the ladder, her body awkward and alien to itself. When she reaches the ground floor, she nervously picks at her nails as she stands before her rescuer, a dusty old man who at least looks and has an aura of a human,  waiting for the oncoming verdict. Either he turns her out back to the mercy of nature, or he does not. 

 

“The kettle is by the fire.” 

 

Rey takes that as an invitation to stay at least for tea. She looks over her shoulder to the kitchen area, where the hearth is, a fire steadily going underneath it. A pot of stew boils beside the tea kettle, thick with vegetables and chunks of some sort of white meat. Rey’s mouth waters, but she turns back to the old man. “Cups.” She manages to croak out, her throat dry from no use. 

 

“Cabinet is near the wash bin.” 

 

Rey retrieves two clay cups and gets to work, using the hem of her dress to protect her fingers from the iron. She sets a cup in front of the old man and sits in front of him on the provided stool. 

 

She waits. Waits for him to explain everything, or perhaps just the basics of her mission. Maybe she waits for him to shed his skin and be Kylo Ren in disguise, maybe she waits for him to try and kill her. But when nothing happens, she grows impatient. 

 

Her cup is drained before she speaks, “I need bandages.” Her feet still hurt, and several cuts on the rest of her body are beginning to make themselves known by throbbing like a… certain goddess that she will not name. 

 

The old man looks up at her now, his gray eyes even more ancient and frail than the body they occupy. He sits up and looks at Rey, truly looks like her, reading her like the open book before him. His body leans back as though he has her all figured out. 

 

“There is extra cloth in the chest, as well as some salves. Dinner will be ready soon.” 

 

Rey feels fervently relieved. “Thank you.” As she carefully makes her way over to the chest, careful to step to impact the least amount of sores, she asks, “how long was I asleep?”

 

“Three days.” 

 

Her heart sinks. Already, she’s lost three whole days? Her hands tremble as she starts tearing the fabric into strips, finding a cool smelling ointment to rub on her affected skin. “Has anything happened since then?” 

 

“I haven’t seen anyone but you, and the boatman rowing his charges.” 

 

She presses her lips into a thin line as the man begins the pitter around in the kitchen. Three days? How could she have slept that long? Surely her injuries are not so severe that they warranted her body to shut down for that amount of time. 

 

But… She does admit that she feels fresher. Less exhausted, and less anxious. Like the clouds that have been forming in her head have been lifted, and she can finally think straight again for the first time in a long while. It must not have been just the injuries, it must have been the accumulation of stress from the last few months. 

 

The process of wrapping her feet is tedious, and as she works on her arms, she finds herself having to unwrap and start over several areas because she keeps making mistakes. 

 

“Stew is ready.” The man says with little pomp and circumstance. He slops some into a bowl and thrusts it towards her like he can’t even stand the sight of her. 

 

She eats it there, on the floor, like an animal. After starving herself and her baby for two, maybe three days, and being asleep for several more, the stew is the most delicious thing she’s eaten in her life. It’s entirely gone within seconds, and she is ready to ask for more.

 

“No,” the man says before she so much as opens her mouth, “I don’t need you vomiting all over my floors. They are freshly mopped.” 

 

Rey looks down at the cleanly licked bowl. 

 

“If you want something to do, you can help me in my gardens.” 

 

Rey loves the idea of gardening. The literal ‘fruit of your labors’ has always appealed to the part of her that knows not to take anything for granted, the part of her that never faded even by becoming a princess. Though she’s never actually done much gardening besides pointing out which flowers to plant, her actual experience in the subject is lacking. That fact is ever so apparent as she struggles to follow the old man’s lead, ending up in charge of weed checking since he was quick to mistrust her with pruning or telling what is ripe. The unfamiliar plants played a large part in the last bit. Even in Kylo Ren’s extensive gardens, she had not seen anything such as this. 

 

“I'm Rey. Do you have a name?” Rey tries to create conversation to lull her own anxiety. Her bandages are impeccable and well bound, though that doesn’t stop the blisters that dot her feet from hurting every time she shifts. She manages to find a certain, yet awkward, way to sit where she depends on only upper torso movement to reach out and pick through the soil.

 

The old man stops and looks at her. His eyes are weathered with age, and in the dusty in-between of night and day, he looks old as time itself. “I’ve had many, names, girl. I pray not to remember most of them.” 

 

“Oh.” Rey wishes that for once someone would just give her a straight answer instead of an essay that simply dodges the question altogether. “Is there one that you at least appreciated or do you hate them all?”

 

His beard twitches, “I suppose if you must have something to call me then you may address me as what my mother named me.”

 

Rey waits, and when he does not elaborate she asks, “And what would be the name your mother gave you?”

 

“Luke.” 

 

“Okay, Mister Luke.” Rey cuts her fingers on one of the weeds’ thorns, rubbing the edge of her dress against it to stop the stinging. She might as well get all of her questions out of the way, or at least try to if Luke is this talkative. “Why does the water burn?” 

 

“It is not normal water.”

 

Rey waits for him to explain further, but he does not, so she tries again. “Why isn’t it normal water?”

 

“Because it is not.” 

 

Rey bites her lips and tries her best to not roll her eyes. Maybe he does not know, either. Rey learned early as a child that sometimes adults want to keep a sense of superiority over youth even though they are as clueless about the world as children. 

 

“Tell me about your plants,” Rey attempts instead.

 

Once Luke opens his mouth, Rey realized there is no way to stop him until he is satisfied with the garden’s state. He explains to her in great detail each plant and its function, which ones grow best together and which ones need to be on opposite sides of the fence. Bred for their durability, not for aesthetic purposes, all of his herbs need little water to survive. The water is not safe to drink for either humans or plants, so Luke collects mist in rags he hangs over clotheslines, squeezing the water out once the cloth begins dripping. 

 

Since there is no day or night, time is kept based on the coming and going of the mist. Luke figures that a whole day has gone when the fog comes, and begins again when the fog recedes, much like how the night can give way to dewey morning. 

 

At the end of the discussion, Rey is covered in dust, a basket balanced on one of her hips with a few selected roots and leaves. Luke directs her back inside. 

 

She sits at his desk while he bustles about, measuring water and putting something on the stove to bowl. He has her crushing something foul-smelling, a purplish root that he had pulled from the garden. The thing is tough, but the rough texture of the stone mortar and clubbed end of the pestle make it easier on her sore arms. 

 

“I appreciate this and all, sir, but may I ask why you are helping me?” Rey asks, breaking the silence. 

 

“Because I don’t need a corpse on my doorstep and a ghost wisping about. Do you see anything to conduct proper burial rights here? Being on the doorstep of an underworld doesn’t mean I have the necessary equipment to ease your spirit on to its journey.” Clattering comes from the cabinet with the pots and pans as Luke digs around for a specifically sized kettle. 

 

“I see.” Rey crunches the fibers down into a watery paste and continues trying to get any remaining chunks thinned out. “I have some questions about the Underworld, um, if you don’t mind.” 

 

“Allow me to guess,” Luke turns around and gives her a condescending frown, “You want to know how to get there alive, and how to come back out alive.”

 

“Yes, actually.” Rey lights up. “Do many others make the journey down and back?” 

 

“Oh, many living people go down there. Very few come back up, and never with what they desired to bring with them.”

 

“Oh.” Rey focuses very hard on the paste. 

 

Luke sighs, stirring at the hearth with his iron poker. “Look, you seem like a nice girl. And you are with child. I get that losing someone important to you is traumatizing, but you can’t bring back the dead. I’m sure your man was good to you, and you think you can’t live without him, but you have to let him go.”

 

“Wait- uh,”

 

“I do know about loss, girl, and it does get better with time. You just have to let him go.” Luke seems satisfied with his warning, gesturing for Rey to hand him the paste she just made. 

 

As she hands him the mortar, she says, “I think you have misunderstood my intentions.” 

 

“How so?” Luke dumps the contents into the small pan, allowing most of the liquid to boil away.

 

“My- er, man, is alive. A…” She doesn’t feel safe invoking the name of Aphrodite, especially since she hasn’t completed the task yet and it's been three days. “A goddess has him, and I have to complete a task to at least have the chance to see him again.” She looks down at her bandaged hands, feeling shame creep into her cheeks. “That is... if he even wants me.” 

 

Luke’s eyes narrow at her. “I see.” He pokes the contents of the pan with a wooden spoon. “I see.” 

 

“I’m supposed to bring a box to Persephone,” Rey explains, “it’s one of the tasks. I’ve been given.” 

 

“And how many other tasks have you undergone, so far?” 

 

“Three.” Her eyes fill with tears again, “I had not eaten or slept during that time.”

 

“And the goddess in question?” Luke is very serious now, taking the chair across from her. “Did she take him from you out of spite? Were either of you bragging about power or abilities before this?”

 

Rey sniffs, shaking her head, “Neither of us were! I would never-” her voice trails off as she remembers the festival. Head light from drinking, fires dim. The flirting and empty promises. “Someone might have started a rumor.” Her voice is meek, empty. How could one little rumor have caused… this? “But it was before I met him, surely… that would not have caused this.” 

 

Luke clicks his tongue. “Gods are tricky creatures with seemingly infinite lifespans, Rey. The goddess in question might have waited for the right moment to hurt you the most.” 

 

The tears fall again. Was this all her fault? Did Kylo’s patron goddess really want to simply punish her? Or is Kylo in on this as well? Her fingers tingle with numbness as she stares blanking forward, her mind going to all the worst places possible. Her lungs feel as though they may collapse. Is this what agony is? 

 

Luke gets up to pour her a tall glass of water while she cries so she can rehydrate herself. She takes little sips in between hiccups, pitiful attempts to calm herself. When Luke offers to make her a sleep-inducing tea, she readily agrees, wanting to end the day and start anew. 

 

The tea is sweet and hot, soothing the muscles in her fingers as she clutches the cup. When her entire body feels sluggish, she climbs back up to the bed to rest. Even as she closes her eyes to sleep, she wonders if maybe Kylo Ren had been toying with her from the start.

 

The night passes peacefully, and she sleeps with images and whispers of a wingless angel. 

 

Rey wakes, feeling even more rested than the day before. The smell of something sizzling rouses her to her still aching feet, but she’s quick to climb down the ladder to see what’s cooking. More of the salve she used to coat her injuries yesterday is on the table, as well as fresh bandages for her to use. 

 

“Better wrap yourself up, if you’re leaving today. I’ll clean your old bandages while you finish getting ready.” Luke has a steaming pot of water ready to boil any infection away.

 

“Thank you.” Rey is very profuse in her gratitude, because without the kindness of this old hermit, she’d be going to the underworld the easy way. She unwraps her arms and legs, checking for early signs of infection along the many cuts. So far the blisters that dot her feet are the only things she worries over, but if she is careful, she should be fine. The salve she uses smells an awful lot like the root she mashed yesterday, and makes careful note of it should she happen to come across it in the future. 

 

Two of the blisters have popped. When Rey rubs the salve over them, the cooling burn causes tears to spark in her eyes. She bites the bottom of her lip to keep from crying out as she tightly wraps the bandage around her feet, adding another layer of fabric since she is missing the luxury of shoes. 

 

Once Rey is satisfied with her bandaging job, she follows Luke out to the side of the house where the rages catch water from the air during the mist. He shows her how to wring out the water without tainting it into stone bowls, and she ferries them back and forth to the jugs that Luke keeps covered in the house. 

 

As she carefully drips the precious liquid into the jugs, she takes stock of the storage of food he has. Far more than what he is capable of eating by himself, she decides. And the conversation yesterday? He was so confident he knew her story because he must have heard the same thing over and over again. Rey isn’t the only one seeking shelter and food. She’s probably only one of many seeking out a loved one (although hers is still living). And Luke cares for all of them. The thought makes her smile.

 

Breakfast is some kind of eyeless fish, along with a fried array of vegetables. “I find that the fish swimming in the river are fine to eat as long as you don’t consume too many of them in a day.” Luke hands Rey a plate and pours her a cup of steaming tea that smells downright putrid. 

 

“Drink all of it,” He gestures to her stomach, “the herbs will help your health.” He then downs all of it without even flinching, slamming the cup down and arching a single eyebrow at her, challenging her to do the same.

 

For the baby, Rey manages to choke all of the vile liquid down, though her throat and stomach are not happy about it one bit. Once Luke is sure all of her tea is gone, he pours her a cup of water to help rid her mouth of the taste. As she did yesterday, Rey inhales the food, barely breathing in between bites. 

 

Luke had packed her a knapsack with food, a skin of water, extra bandages, and a small jar of the salve. “The ferryman of the dead usually comes a while after the mist lifts. I hope you have something of material value to pay him with.”

 

“I have this?” Rey shows the old man the jewel-encrusted goblet Aphrodite had forgotten. 

 

He grunts his approval. “That’ll do. Chiron doesn’t much care whether his customers are dead or alive as long as they have something to pay with.”

 

Rey slides the chalice alongside the box, and she tucks the knapsack around her shoulders. “Okay.” She takes a sharp breath, steadying her nerves. “I’m ready.” 

 

“While you wait for the boat, why don’t you make yourself useful and help me in the garden.” Luke opens a chest to reveal even more gardening tools to work with. 

 

“Of course!” 

 

Rey carries his tools for him, as he makes it clear that he can’t trust her with the actual gardening process. He is digging a new wing for a strain of potatoes he wants to try to grow, he explains as he digs around in the soil. They work together for a while until Rey spots a dark splotch steadily coming towards them.

 

“It’s here!” The tools all clatter to the ground as Rey drops them in excitement. “Sorry!” 

 

“Get your bag, have your payment ready.” Luke barks at her, gesturing to where she had placed the knapsack while they were working. Once she fetched it, he walks her over to the dock that sits in front of his house. “Okay, kid, listen carefully. Hades is actually pretty easy going, just don’t go blowing your mouth at him.”

 

“Right.” 

 

“It’s his wife who dishes out the ugly punishments, but Persephone is a pretty decent goddess herself. Just ask what you need, and if they are in a good enough mood, you get it with no questions asked.”

 

Rey hadn’t even thought of the side quests Persephone might send her through for handling the box. Her stomach sinks. “Are they usually in a good mood?” 

 

Luke looks sideways. “...Sure.” 

 

Deep breaths, deep breaths. “Whatever happens, Luke, thank you so much for your help.”

 

He grunts dismissively. “Whatever. Just come out of there alive.” 

 

The boat glides to a stop, the passengers all making room so Rey can walk up to the Boatman. Rey quickly hugs Luke, then carefully steps onto the boat, chalice clutched in a death grip. The floor of the boat is cold on her aching feet, and she notices that her entire body feels like it dropped a few degrees the second she stepped on. 

 

She hands the goblet to the hooded man at the ores, and he looks it over with a huff. She can’t see his face, but the fabric of the hood bobs as he nods. He gestures to an open seat, which Rey takes quickly, fearful that he may change his mind. She gives a brief wave to Luke as the boat shudders as they push out from the dock, back to the rapids of the river. Luke simply gives her a nod in return.

 

She clutches her knapsack with both hands and faces forward, towards the underworld.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Rey is thankful to be sandwiched between two dead people because the combination of having flesh and sitting on the end where the spray of the deadly river Styx can hit her would not be particularly delightful. She hugs her knapsack tightly against her prominent stomach, biting at her lip as the boat glides down the river with the current, arms bracing every time the spray leaps at the sides. 

 

Although she doubts that the wispy bodies of the dead will do much to protect her. When the boat shudders, Rey’s thigh slips through the ghost next to her, as though going through a patch of jelly. The spot where she touches them feels cold, frigid, and she is quick to mumble an apology and pull herself free. Her skin tingles with relief at being rescued, thawing out.

 

Soon Rey can see the mouth of the cave up ahead. As the boat glides closer to the entrance, the sounds that she previously thought was wind turns out to be voices. At first, she believes that they are the wailing voices of ghosts learning that they are dead, but as she listens harder, there is a harmony in the notes. It is singing, melodious and sad. 

 

The twilight sky fades as they enter the mouth of the cave, replaced by a gentle blue glow that emanates from various cracks in the cavern’s wall. The ghostly passengers turning solid as their spirits slide into a place where they can be physical once more. 

 

A kind of horror fills her as she notices that some of the passengers are children. Not at the notion that children die, but as someone carrying her first child, the idea of toddler mortality doesn’t sit well with her. Nausea fills her stomach, and she does her best not to vomit across the deck.

 

Docks slide into view, large and foreboding, built for ships much larger than the one Rey is on. It has every appearance of being a busy port, like the one Rey landed on with Armitage in the First Order, with lines of places for various ships to land. The only evidence that there was ever anyone other than Chiron and his charges in this place is a metallic ship’s bow sticking out of the water, the rest of its body swallowed by the oily river. 

 

Ropes are magically thrown from the side of the boat. They wrap around the poles sticking from the docks, and Chiron shoves his way through the people to put down a plank for them to walk across. Rey shuffles with the rest of the dead people, all following the only path provided. As soon as the last person is off, Chiron pushes the boat away and glides with the current, further down the docks and out of sight. 

 

As with the port, the road they walk on appears to be made for a much larger crowd than the few dead souls occupying its space. The cobblestones match the rocks of the cavern, the cement that holds the stones together brittle with age. The same mist that plagued Rey yesterday obscures their destination from sight.

 

She can hear it, though. The choir that sings Hellenistically, music from an era so lost to the modern traditions and gods Rey feels she must weep. The melody is for them, all of the crossing spirits, Rey’s included. The song is for their funerals, regardless of their stations in life. It is for their losses, their lives, for their family’s loss, and if they had no family, for that missing piece as well. 

 

The small parade of people continues on, a massive formation in front of them becoming more and more visible. The gates to the underworld are large and foreboding, made from black metal and decorated with mosaics made from glittering jewels. There are twelve mosaics in all, each depicting a different god from the Empire’s pantheon. 

 

A shiver runs through Rey’s body as she looks at the mosaic depicting Aphrodite. It shows a beautiful woman emerging from a shell, born from seafoam that a titan’s certain chopped off part mixed with. To be honest, it is not quite the most beautiful conception that Rey can think of, especially for a goddess of beauty. 

 

Loud creaking overpowers any other sounds as the gate opens. The metal parts at the center to reveal a very large, very adorable, but very deadly guard dog. Wait- two guard dogs. No? Rey squints her eyes and tries to make sense of the massive shapes that barely make a cohesive statement in the dim light. It isn’t until the torches surrounding the creature are lit that she understands that it is one superbly large dog that sports three heads sprouting from its shoulders. 

 

One of the little ghost girls grabs Rey’s hand and begins to cry. Instantly, Rey’s sister instinct kicks in, and she scoops up the child. The girl couldn’t be older than six and has dark circles under her swollen eyes from exhaustion. Little pot marks are speckled throughout the child’s skin, some still oozing with infection. 

 

Rey resists the immediate urge to throw the sick child away from her, chastising herself. Theoretically, this is the girl’s spirit, and therefore not carrying the disease that killed her physical body.  Managing to find a spot at her hip that is easy for the child’s legs to grip without hurting the unborn baby, Rey tries distracting the little girl. “My name is Rey, what’s yours?” 

 

“I’m Eulia.” The little girl whispers her name, so quietly Rey can barely hear. She buries her dark hair into Rey’s tattered tunic, not willing to face the beast that stands guard at the gate. Her little body is trembling as she cries, and Rey adjusts her grip so that she holds the girl in both arms. 

 

“Well, Eulia. That big scary dog is supposed to keep people who try to come in without permission from succeeding.”  _ People like me,  _ Rey thinks but doesn’t say out loud. Her own fear of facing the demon dog is erased for the sole purpose of showing the little girl that she will be okay when it is her turn to cross. 

 

Two attendants stand by the dog’s side, only allowing one soul to enter at a time. Though Rey is sure to be at the very back, the line goes through much faster than she anticipated. Soon, she is standing before a dog that could so easily crush her spine in each of its mouths. 

 

“It’s okay,” Rey coos to Eulia, trying to mask her own terror, “the dog isn’t going to hurt you. See?” 

 

Eulia timidly turns her head around to face the beast, lower lip quivering. Slowly, she allows Rey to put her down so that she can walk across the threshold of the Underworld on her own. Her bare feet touch the floor, and she stands before the dog, shaking. 

 

“Try saying hi,” Rey suggests.

 

“Hello.” Eulia’s greeting could have been dismissed as just an exhale of air. Her eyes dart around for possible escape routes should the big scary monster snap at her. 

 

One of the dog’s heads bends down to her and sniffs the little girl. If there is such a thing as a second soul, Eulia’s would have launched forth at this point. But in a sudden burst of childish confidence, she stomps her foot and points to the dog. “I’m not afraid of you!” Her shaking hand suggests that she is still very much afraid of the dog, but even so, Rey finds the statement very admirable. 

 

The middle head leans down and gives Eulia a puppy kiss, leaving a trail of slime up her tunic and on her face. She shrieks with laughter, shouting “Gross!” with such joyful mirth Rey almost wants the same treatment herself. Eulia steps over to the animal, giving the furthest head pats and scratches around its ear. 

 

It is Rey’s turn now, and the head closest to her eyes her suspiciously. Or what Rey supposes what a dog’s suspicion looks like. She stands before the middle head and tries fumbling for the box Aphrodite gave her, in the hopes that the dog will understand her mission. 

 

“That’s my friend!” Eulia points to Rey, running up and grabbing her arm. “Can she come in with me, pretty pretty please?” 

 

The middle head grunts, jerking its head towards the inside. “Thank you!” Eulia yanks on Rey’s elbow, pulling her inside. “I’ll come back to play later!” 

 

“Thank you, Eulia,” Rey whispers to the little girl, as they both walk past the hooded attendants and through the threshold of the gate. And with that, Rey is in the Underworld. 

 

Rey does not feel any different as she enters the land of the dead. A little light headed from relief, perhaps, but nothing else. The bandages on her feet that she so meticulously wrapped are holding, the padded areas only protecting her blisters slightly. The air is crisp and refreshing, a little different than the kind of air one would expect in a cave. There is no smell of rot, the only suggestion that the people surrounding her are dead are the ashy shades of flesh and dark circles under eyes. 

 

Like Eulia, everyone seemed to appear as they did when they died. There is a man with a large gash sliced through his stomach, though none of his intestines spill out. Next to him, there is a woman with blood between her legs, and she carries a baby in her arms. Everyone huddles closer together as they walk on, towards a large, foreboding palace that is carved into the cavern wall. 

 

The facade is intricate, laden with jewels that glitter in the torchlight. A blue fire flickers in the fire pits that line the balconies and pathways, casting the carved pillars of the palace its light. As they get closer, Rey notices that the columns are cut to take the form of minor gods. Though her knowledge in this Parthenon is minimal, she notices that they have familiar objects of power that she’s seen in illustrations. Some of them must be so old that they belong with the Elder Gods, worshipped long before even Naboo was founded. 

 

They enter the palace, and Eulia’s grip on Rey’s hand intensifies. The atrium of the castle is large, the ceiling stretching up further than the cavern. At the end of the body of the room, are two large thrones, equal in size and stature, though each uniquely decorated for the taste of the god that sits upon them. Six smaller thrones sit on either side, uniform in appearance, for the judges of souls. 

 

There are others in the palace as well, both ghosts and gods. Rey can taste the diety’s power like acid on her tongue, the hair of her arms standing on end. Both groups mingle with each other, talking in hushed tones and stopping to look over Rey and the others, some losing interest quickly while others taking their time. 

 

Before Rey could fathom anything else, she and the newly dead stand before Hades, Persephone, and twelve judges who hold the fates of these people in their hands. The chairs and thrones are elevated so that those standing before them must look up to face their judgment. 

 

Persephone smiles invitingly at the dead mother, still clutching her infant for dear life. “Stand in the circle, dear. It will all be over soon.” 

 

Her voice is the opposite of Aphrodite’s, a welcome breeze in a desert. While the love goddess holds secrets in her tone, allowing you to make the mistake of hoping that they mean love for you, Persephone is open and bare. The Queen of the Underworld has nothing to hide because her power lies not in an easily manipulated emotion, but with the season of spring and the souls of the dead.

 

“We are reviewing your life on the Earth, and will hold a vote to determine the afterlife that you deserve.” Persephone’s voice easily matched her features. Her skin is bronze, but not the plastic smooth of engineered perfection. She has a scar on the side of her face, from her cheekbone to her chin. Dark freckles group together on her nose and disperse at her cheeks. Her chestnut hair is short, only reaching a few inches past her chin,  and in beautifully coiled curls. Flower shaped ornaments and pins dot her hair, creating a constellation of jewels to represent a crown. To her right, casually leaning against her throne, is a sword with the most beautifully decorated sheath. 

 

On the floor, there is a large ring of white marble for the souls to stand judgment on. As the mother steps onto it to commence her trial, a giant crystal ball descends from the ceiling, attached to nothing to hold it in place. It hovers over the ring the mother stands in, showing a kind of map of the world.

 

“Show us this woman’s life,” Persephone commands it. 

 

Images begin to flash by, showing children and the woman working in a field, gathering nuts and berries for food. 

 

“A simple life of a mother, yet half of the children living in your home were not born from you. Your charity to those orphans is admirable.” A judge to the right of Persephone says, approvingly. 

 

“But at the risk of your own children. How could a mother share less than what she can give to those of not her flesh?” A different judge to the left of Hades states, almost snidely. “Look where it got her, too weak to properly give birth. Dead without anyone to care for those she left behind.”

 

The woman standing trial sniffs, clutching her baby’s ghost tightly in her arms.  

 

“Would you allow people to die when you know you can help them?” Another judge asks. “Have you ever seen someone suffering? She has empathy for her fellow humans, which is more than I can say for you.” 

 

As the trial continues, Rey takes the time to open her knapsack and retrieve the box. The deeper grooves of the carvings seem to almost glow with the same blue from the fires surrounding her. 

 

“What’s that?” Eulia whispers inquisitively, popping up on her toes to see the designs of the box better. 

 

“I don’t know. I was told to bring it here,” Rey whispers back. 

 

The panel of judges voted, almost all in favor of sending the mother to Elysium with her baby. The next person stands in the ring. While that person undergoes scrutiny, Rey notices that one of the judges on Persephone’s side is staring at her intently. When Rey catches her looking, the judge doesn’t look away but smiles as though they are old friends. Rey is not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. 

 

The king of the underworld has skin so pale it is almost white, with the edges of his fingers, lips, and ears tinted blue. His long hair is so black that Rey can only see a straight blob from where she stands. There are no irises or pupils in his eyes and are a pure milky white that he appears to see perfectly from, as he points exactly to the next person in line and gestures for them to stand in the circle. Upon his head sits a metallic laurel crown, smelted and carved from gold. 

 

Again, Rey allows herself to hang in the back, allowing the other people to go in front of her. By proxy, Eulia is also letting people go in front of her since she refuses to so much as step a pace away from Rey. There are not a lot of people to begin with, so the line goes reasonably quickly until it is just the two of them.  Eulia clutches Rey’s hand so tightly that both their fingers might break from the strain. 

 

“Little one!” Persephone smiles encouragingly at Eulia. “Come forth.” 

 

Eulia looks back at Rey, who nods. “It will be alright.” She squeezes the little girl’s hand in reassurance.

 

The little girl’s dark hair bobs as she walks over to the circle, her hands folded shyly in front of her. She looks up at the queen of the underworld, and after only a few moments of observation, declares, “I like you because you have pretty hair.” 

 

Persephone is absolutely delighted. “Thank you!” 

 

“I like your dog. The big one, with three heads.” Eulia nods firmly, as though she is giving them critical information. “I would like to pet him and give him treats.” 

 

“You are absolutely welcome to, I am sure.” Persephone smacks her elbow against Hades’, and he nods in agreement. 

 

“I’m sure he would enjoy your company.” Hades offers. 

 

Eulia claps her hands together. “That makes me happy! Madam Saphira would not let us keep dogs or cats or anything. I found a bird once and tried taking care of him but she threw him in the fire and said that she would sell me to the rich family uptown if I did it again.” 

 

Persephone and Hades trade looks. “I see,” Persephone clears her throat, “that’s unfortunate. Was this Saphira your mother?”

 

“Ew! No! She is so old.” Eulia shakes her head. “My momma worked for her as one of her, um,” the little girl cocks her head and thinks, “special girls.” 

 

“Fascinating stuff,” Hades says, looking over the judges with a warning glare, “let’s commence the trial.” 

 

“Okay!” Eulia tries to stand still, fidgeting with the ends of her skirt.

 

Rey does _ not  _ like what she sees when Eulia’s life begins to play on the sphere. A woman with Eulia’s same dark hair worked in what appeared to be a brothel, hiding her little girl from the men whose eyes wander towards the younger prostitutes. Until one day, her mother was nowhere to be found, as though she had been smitted off the planet.

 

Although most of it went over the little girl’s head while she was alive, Rey, as an adult, is able to piece some of the more distressing details together. It was apparent to her mother’s employer that Eulia was growing up to be beautiful, with a good jaw and glossy hair. So instead of turning the little girl out into the street, Eulia became an investment. Until she got sick. 

 

Even if she had healed, the scars on Eulia’s body lowered her value significantly. So the little girl was left to rot, and rot she did.  

 

“So, can I go pet your dog, or do I need to stay here?” Eulia bounces on the balls of her feet, clapping her hands together and to the sides. 

 

Persephone looks over to the judge who had previously critiqued the mother’s behavior and sends him a spine-shattering glare. “All in favor of sending the girl to Elysium?” She asks. 

 

The answer is a unanimous yes.

 

“Someone escort the child back to Cerberus.” Hades gestures for one of the servants. 

 

Before she leaves, Eulia runs over to Rey and gives her a huge hug. “You are nice, too. I hope you will come to play with me sometimes!” 

 

“I will... try to. And I will miss you.” Rey murmurs into her hair, letting her run back to the entrance of the Underworld where Eulia’s new best friend is. 

 

Then she faces the court alone. 

 

“Well, you are not dead,” Persephone places her hands together on her lap. “And you are carrying an extra package of life inside you, so this should be good. Let’s hear your story.” 

 

Rey shifts, trying to piece together a cohesive story about the recent events of her life. She tells them about the festival, wincing when she comes to the part about the rumors that flew around the next day. The words of the oracle, and the arrival of the monster. Her invisible lover. How she found him, fully formed, while he slept, and his rage at her mistrust. 

 

She holds out the box to Persephone. “Aphrodite has been giving me tasks to accomplish, each one harder than the last. If I ever want to see him again, I have to complete each and every one. The task I am currently fulfilling was to bring this down to you, Goddess.”

 

“You poor thing.” Persephone stands, walking down the stairs and into the circle with Rey. The train of her cape flutters against the black stones, an invisible breeze causing it to shift. “I do remember her mentioning you in the last Olympian meeting.” She turns back to her husband, who nods.

 

“She threw a fit,” Hades supplies for her, “Literally throwing things everywhere, making us promise not to help you directly in any shape or form. I suppose though,” he arches his eyebrows thoughtfully, “that if she sent you here with explicit directions for my wife, then we would not be helping Rey, we would be helping Aphrodite herself, wouldn’t we, dear?”

 

“You can’t be serious,” the judge who seems hell-bent on making afterlife difficult on everyone says. 

 

“Are you questioning my methods?” Persephone barks at him, eyes narrowing as though debating on the best way to fry his skin off. 

 

The judge does not respond. 

 

The goddess turns back to Rey, a cheerful smile on her face, “and none of this ‘your highness’ stuff from you, honey. Just call me Persephone. We’ll get this sorted out.” She takes the box from Rey’s hands and looks it over, brow furrowing in concentration. She takes it back up to her husband, and they mutter a few words back and forth. 

 

Finally, Persephone turns back. “It’s just as I thought. Avert your eyes, Rey.” As Persephone begins to glow, Rey does as she is told, placing her hands over her eyelids for extra protection. 

 

“All done!” 

 

Rey opens her eyes again, walking over and accepting the box once more. “Thank you, thank you so much.” 

 

“It is not an issue. But you could maybe remember to give us some offerings now and then? Just to keep us going.” Persephone waves at Rey. “Not that I don’t miss the busy days, but it has gotten so quiet lately, especially with those new gods everyone is praying to.” 

 

“Oh… certainly.” Rey nods, trying to remember if there are even temples dedicated to Hades and Persephone in Naboo. There are not, but Rey decides she might as well change that. Unsure what else to do, she bows at the group.

 

“This court is dismissed,” Hades announces, nodding at the room. Everyone stands and begins to mill about, some wandering to the sides of the hall where tables of food await for their consumption. Others start to group together and begin to talk in hushed tones, a kind of tense atmosphere descending upon them as though they are still waiting for something important.

 

“Wait.” Just as Rey turns to leave, the judge who had been observing her closely walks towards her. The judge’s brunette hair is up in an elaborate bun, braids twisting and turning with a perfect amount of curls loose. She is only slightly smaller than Rey but had a stature that seems to take the entire room. “Rey,” the judge smiles at her, warm and maternal. “Look at you. So grown up in such a little time.” 

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Rey clutches her knapsack tightly, unsure of why this woman is giving her this strange warmth in her stomach, s though Rey is finally meeting someone she should already know. 

 

“Here,” she reaches around her neck and pulls her necklace loose, “I need you to bring this to Leia. She has almost nothing personal to remember me by.” 

 

“Remember you by?” Rey accepts the necklace, wondering if it is a very different Leia that they are speaking of. It is carved from white ivory, yellowed slightly with age. Little marks decorate the front, the string a simple twine. 

 

The judge puts her hands on Rey’s shoulders. “My little baby girl had to grow up without me.” Her eyes have tears, but of sorrow long spent. Instead of bitterness, they hold joy and hope for the world Rey descended from. “And for that, I will always carry guilt in my heart. But she must know how proud I am of her, and you, and all your sisters as well. Watching you grow up has been a blessing that has allowed me to sleep without sadness.” 

 

“Are you... Padme?” Rey asks, allowing herself to be pulled into a hug. 

 

“Yes.” Padme kisses her on the cheek, looking proud as though she raised Rey herself.

 

Rey can barely process that she is talking to Padme Amidala, the powerhouse of the slave rebellion. Stories are still told of her exploits, of her cleverness and political genius that could be matched with no one. One of the main players who brought the downfall of the Empire. _Padme Amidala,_ Leia's mother. Rey's grandmother. She suddenly feels like it is hard to breathe. 

 

“Let me walk you to the docks, at least. Tell me about your family.” Padme takes Rey by the arm and walks with her through the grand hall. 

 

It feels good to talk about her sisters. Rey tells her grandmother about the time she and Jessika managed to catch a feral tom cat in the alleyway, only to lose him as soon as they entered back into the palace. That caused a terrible uproar with visiting dignitaries, especially the one from Alexandria who had brought their own cat from their home. 

 

They pass Eulia, who is throwing rocks and laughing hysterically as one of Cerebus’ heads chomps on it, midair. When the little girl sees them, she waves wildly. “Hi, Rey! Hi, pretty lady!” 

 

Rey waves back, and they pass through the gate. “Aren’t you going to be unghosted or something?” She asks Padme. 

 

“Oh, no.” Padme waves her hand. “That takes a certain amount of black magic that neither of us can pull off, or even should try to pull off. I’ll wait with you at the docks until Chiron rows back, and pay for your seat.” 

 

“Would you… Mind telling me what happened? Leia said that your husband was… stolen. Because he was a Mystic.”

 

Padme looks down at the ground. “Of course.” Her voice breaks slightly. “Forgive me, I’m afraid I will not stay dry-eyed. There are some things not even death can ease the pain of.” 

 

Rey looks over at the empty docks of the Underworld. "We have all night."   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is another chapter involving my favorite power couple from greek mythology. 
> 
> I like to imagine that Persephone is a kind of Joan of Arc character, and will 100% throw down with you if you look at her sweet husband wrong. She is adorable and nice but will not hesitate to free your intestines from your skin if you are a terrible person.


	13. Padme's Story, Part I

A respectable plebian family had no need for daughters, yet the Naberrie family had two. Though try as she might, Jobal Naberrie did not become pregnant again after the birth of her second girl. There could be no one to take over the family business, for girls were seen as less than men and incapable of such things.

 

Ruwee was not a cruel man and refused to see fault in his wife for not bearing a son. He found it strange that men blame things on their female counterparts, even if the accusations are contradictory. If the child is born and it is a boy, men rejoice at their own accomplishments. If the child is born and it is not a boy, women were beaten for being weak and insufficient. A boy is the will of the gods, yet a girl is a curse unless she grows to be very beautiful. Then she is a gift from the gods, for male consumption.

 

Coming overseas from a family of cloth makers, Ruwee found those traditions to be backward and insulting. How were the voices of mortals supposed to speak the will of the gods? There were no holy texts to dictate their wills, and so Ruwee was quick to decide that those were the words of men trying to fit the narrative to their own oppressive needs.

 

And so Ruwee was quicker to accept his family of women, more so than Jobal. She was raised in that environment, her honor as a wife hinging on whether she can birth a son. The failure was taken to heart, and she slowly grew bitter by it. Every snide comment from other wives, every side glance from the men only feeding the infection further until she was defined by its existence. And so rather than coming to terms with her supposed failure, she found it is easier to cast blame on other people.

 

For some people in misery, the only times they can find a semblance of happiness is by spreading their calamities around them. Jobal’s two daughters were the only ones who felt the true brunt of her bitterness. She never articulated her true feelings, but the sentiment was surely there. It crawled in the most innocent of conversations in small, off-putting remarks that were made to fester within their self-esteem.

 

The eldest daughter, Sola, received a large portion of the Jobal’s anger. Nothing Sola accomplished could please the woman, for she was a girl and therefore all the things she performed was inferior. The accusations and lectures grew exponentially as Sola reached marrying age, for her future husband would take charge of the family’s business. Someone else taking over her husband’s pride and joy did not sit well with Jobal, and so every suitor was not good enough for the business, yet too good for Sola’s worthless self.

 

The youngest daughter, Padme, was largely ignored, for as much as the People’s Republic of Rome had little use for daughters, they had even less use for second-born girls. This is especially true in Padme’s case, for it was Sola’s husband who would receive the largest dowry, Sola’s husband who would take over the company. There was very little to offer Padme’s future husband, and so it came to the conclusion that she would simply not marry.

 

For any daughter who was not the first, oftentimes they would give themselves over to a life of celibacy in the name of the gods. It was a kind of protection, for gods-fearing men would not try and defile priestesses as they so often defile those who are helpless. Eternal virginity was, of course, a far better alternative to other occupations her mother might sell her to, so Padme was not particularly disappointed by this decision.

 

But she was also eleven when first offered to the temple, so she had not yet a taste for worldly things. In that way, she was pure and would be favored greatly among the deities. She was readily accepted, and so Padme began her life as a young priestess. Truly that just meant that she was another servant to the elder women of the temple.

 

As she grew older, her body blossomed into something beautiful. The high priestess took note of this, and when she realized that Padme’s beauty accompanied intelligence, the young girl began to be primed for a position in the priestess circle.

 

At the age of fourteen, Padme conducted her own ritual ceremony, sacrificing a bull by slitting its throat and burning it on a pyre. The service involved Padme dancing and chanting a complicated language, begging the temple’s patron goddess Aphrodite to bestow upon them another year of bounty. The ceremony’s execution was flawless, and Padme was hailed as a protege.

 

Though her status was elevated to near royalty within the temple walls, Padme would not allow herself to grow haughty as the other priestesses had. She often ate with the slaves, working with them and learning how to use her position to better their lives.

 

That is how she met Anakin.

 

He was a waif of a boy when they first met, the child of a pleasure slave that worked in the temple. Blue eyes were hidden by matted tufts of hair that fell past his shoulders. His face was covered in grime and looked as though he hadn’t a bath in his life.

 

When he was clean, she learned from his mother, he looked like a cherub. Rosy cheeks, curly hair, and a smile that could charm anyone. But something beautiful in a place that considered beauty as a commodity was in danger, especially if that person had no agency. His mother had seen the way some of the patrons of the temple looked at him, lustfully, with no regard for his innocence, and so she had stopped enforcing hygiene on the boy in an attempt to make him seem feral and disgusting.

 

The story caused Padme’s skin to crawl, and so she took it upon herself to find a safe place to send the boy to. She did not have to look very far, because soon two Mystics had come to test for anyone for the Gift. Though much of the order of the Mystic people was a mystery, everyone knew that if you are proved to be one, you are taken care of for the rest of your life. Even though he was a slave, Padme managed to smuggle Anakin into the testing room on the hopes he may pass.

 

Not only was he gifted, one of the Mystics confided in Padme that Anakin was one of the most powerful boys he has tested, ever. Now it did not matter that Anakin was a slave because the Mystics were hell-bent on returning with the boy for training, confident he would do great things for their order.

 

The goodbye was tearful, for the boy cried as he held his mother. He cried while holding Padme as well, big hiccuping sobs that pulled her heart and caused her to shed tears alongside him. That was when he gave her a necklace he carved from a small marble chipping. “When you see this, remember me.” It was a request and a plea, and those were his last words to her before he left.

 

Padme was confident she would never meet the boy again and was satisfied it would be in Anakin’s own favor. There was her work to take the boy’s place in her life, overseeing ceremonies, calculating expenses, and teaching the young recruits. Steadily over the years, she built a life up for herself in the temple.

 

The night of the sacred rites arrived when she turned sixteen, for that is the year she could legally wed, and so it was the year she would lawfully pledge herself an eternal virgin. Her old identity was washed away, for as women who marry and change their names, Padme must do the same. The sisterhood which she joined all carried name Amidala, and so from that day forward, she was no longer Padme Naberrie, but Padme Amidala.

 

Her father sat in attendance for the naming ceremony, as was his right to do so. Between the praise and congratulations of other priestesses and maidens, Ruwee told Padme how she made him proud as any boy. She did not cry until he father had left and she was safely in her room, for she did not want the other women and men to think she was weak. There were no reasons for tears, she told herself, but a part of her knew that she was robbed of a future. Robbed because she was a girl.

 

The night after Padme’s rites, Shmi became sick. She had been ailing for some time, but this was as if her organs collectively decided not to work. No one cared to help the pleasure slave, for she was not a favorite among clients, and so she was expendable in the eyes of the accountants. Padme was enraged, of course, but her lethal words had no effect of the coffer pockets of the temple.

 

Nursing the frail woman during her free time was all Padme could do. She burned offerings, said prayers, even begged a client who happened to be a physician to at least give a diagnosis. Though obviously annoyed by the request, the man did as she asked, finding an odd growth in Shmi’s stomach. “Tumor. There is nothing that can be done.” He offered nothing else, not even a suggestion on easing Shmi’s pain, and left Padme sobbing on the floor.

 

It was only a matter of making Shmi comfortable after that. Padme had investigated, even creeping out of the temple during the night to visit the nearby school for a second diagnosis. Once she managed to find someone to talk to her, she received the same condescending response. “You can’t save someone who has a stomach tumor, little girl. Say your goodbyes and be done with it.” She then received a suggestive smile and a blatant invite to bed.

 

All of this, of course, only enraged Padme further. Not that the gods have deemed Shmi to die, but at the sheer disrespect both women received when pursuing treatment. Though she had not thought of her family in a long while, she remembered her mother’s crushing disappointment towards Sola and her. “It will only get harder from here,” Jobal had told them, “so you will thank me for being this way with you, for the world hates daughters even more than I do.”

 

Padme had never truly felt the sentiment until then, kneeling by Shmi’s deathbed as Thanatos gently guides her soul away. The goodbye was tearful, but Padme could sense the relief in Shmi as she no longer had to live in such a world. Death was the only escape, for she was a slave her entire life. Her body was owned, but her spirit was finally free to leave and descend into the Underworld.

 

Though Padme missed Shmi dearly, she felt happy that the older woman was no longer suffering so. Padme received aid from one of the priests and managed to give Shmi the funeral she deserved. A peaceful farewell, guaranteeing her a place in the Underworld.

 

And so time went on. Padme slowly rose up in the ranks, for her mind and her beauty combined were both excellent assets to a priestess. Soon enough she became the personal assistant to one of the elder priestesses, the position of which is known for grooming younger girls for important positions. Even though her career seemed to be going in all the right directions, however, Padme felt nothing.   

 

Just after her twenty-fourth birthday, the chief priestess called Padme into her private chambers. The old woman was blind as a bat but had excellent hearing to make up for it. Her irises were milky white, darting around yet landing on nothing. “Something is happening,” the elder priestess said. “There is a change in the air. The Republic is holding on only by a thread, and soon its enemies will come down upon us to pick at its remains.”

 

Padme did not know how to respond to such a statement. The priestess continued, “I will most likely die before that happens. You, Padme, you will see the change take place. You will be in the center of history. Decide on how you will guide it, if you allow the weak to be crushed for the strong to rise, or if you will join people’s strengths together and rise as one. You must continue our culture, keep our gods alive.”

 

“I promise to do my best.” For that was all Padme could give. She was not a great warrior, nor a mystic. She was a maiden priestess who worked in a temple, and her skills, she felt, were hugely inadequate for what the elder was asking for.

 

But the elder priestess seemed satisfied. Dismissed, Padme went back to her work, the conversation never straying far from her mind. How was she supposed to continue the culture on her own? Did she even want to?

 

During one of her nightly rounds where she would walk through the halls while burning sage, she nearly ran into someone who just stepped out of a bedroom. “Ah! Perhaps you could help me.”

 

Padme paused, turning around and looking over the stranger. He was wearing a mystic’s robes, brown and layered. His hair was long, with a single small braid twisting down across his shoulder. “Yes?” Padme responded, something about the man somewhat familiar.

 

“I used to live here before I went to training. My mother, you see, is one of the slaves who work here. Do you know where Shmi lives?”

 

With every word out of his mouth, Padme feels her skin growing paler and paler. “Anakin?” She asked, her voice raspy with sudden exhaustion, even though seeing the boy again was like a beautiful dream she never allowed herself to have.

 

Anakin’s mouth broke into a grin at her recognition. “I thought it was you!” His voice was joyful, happy to be reunited with Padme again.

 

“I almost did not recognize you. You... _grew_!” It was true, Anakin towered over her. Padme's heart grew heavy once she realized that no one must have told him what happened to his mother. “Anakin.” Her voice was quiet, and she looked out the window, down to where the slaves bury their kin.

 

He understood immediately, his entire body sobering. Padme took him out to the grave, marked with a stone. Anakin cried, his face a mirror of Padme’s own sorrow. Though she had come to terms with Shmi’s death years ago, to see the grief fresh on someone else caused her to be overcome with it as well.

 

They stayed on her grave throughout the night, half crying, half telling stories about their lives from when they parted. It felt good to finally talk to someone, _truly_  talk, about her feelings and her own emptiness since Shmi died. Anakin may have not truly understood her loss, but he did not belittle her. It was a pleasant change.

 

It turns out the temple had requested the presence of two Mystics to oversee a vital ritual, for it needed people who had a unique connection with the Earth Mother in order to understand and complete the ceremonies correctly.

 

Padme had very little knowledge of what precisely the Mystics were. Of course, there were the rumors and legends, none of which she knew to believe or dismiss as fiction. Some myths said that the Mystics could make things float with dark magicks, but only when no one was looking. Some said Mystics can take over one’s mind and bend it to their will. Things of myth such as that, but Padme, all but locked in a temple for most of her life, tried not to let the rumors create a narrative in her mind.

 

She did think to ask Anakin, who he told her that he was under oath not to tell anyone anything. Though, she could tell by the twinkle in his eyes that he was bursting with the secret. His teacher, another man by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi, kept Anakin over his watchful eye, and so Padme could not find a moment to wheedle it out of him.

 

In fact, after their initial meeting on Shmi’s grave, they rarely saw each other. Padme still had to attend to her many duties and daily rituals, while Anakin had to prepare for his own ceremony. Still, the smiles in hallways, the evening meals they stole together made Padme’s life all the brighter.

 

One night, Padme woke suddenly as someone crawled into her bed. “What-” she started, only to have a hand clap over her mouth.

 

“Hush, it’s me.” Anakin urgently whispered the words so close to her ear Padme felt shivers run down her body. There was silence, and then a rush of movement. Anakin threw something into the dark, and Padme heard a sickening wet thud as it made its mark. Another man rushed in, Obi-Wan, and lit one of the lanterns in her room.

 

On the floor, by her open window, was a darkly clad man. There was a knife embedded in the center of his chest, blood leaking around the edges. Padme was no stranger to death, but she had never witnessed someone intentionally killing another. She might have fainted for a few seconds because she blinked and then Anakin was gently shaking her awake.

 

“You need to leave this room. Can you walk?”

 

“I don’t know.” Padme’s breath hitched, her voice shaking. Without further questions, Anakin scooped her up and held her close to his chest, bridal style. He carried her out of the room while Obi-Wan did a sweep of the courtyard just outside her window, finding no one else.

 

The council was awoken and informed of the assassination. It was then that Padme realized she was going to be a key component in the upcoming ceremony, which requires a priestess of youth and talent to undertake. “I could not have thought of a better candidate than you, Padme Amidala.” The eldest priestess stated.

 

Anakin later told her that a terrorist group who wish to bring forth their own gods want to be sure the ceremony fails. Their teachings stated that the time of the current gods was long past, for all things die, even gods, and now they belong with the dust of the Earth Mother.

 

“How did you figure it out in time?” Padme asked him once they were alone in a room deemed safe for her to spend the night in.

 

Anakin would not look at her in the eye for a moment. Then he sighed, with a shaky breath voice sounding resigned. “I sensed you were in danger.”

 

“How? What do you mean?”

 

“I felt it. Here.” He touched his chest. “There was a hole there. It is very hard to explain… it was like an overwhelming sense of fear on your behalf. And so I knew that something was wrong and came to investigate.”

 

Padme looked at him in awe. “Is that… one of your powers? To sense distress?”

 

“One of them, yes. I felt the same way when my mother died, I think. Stress and depression like I have never felt before, and then a sudden release.” He looks awful in the candlelight, as though someone carved out all of his happiness and left a shell of a man. “I ignored it. And I never got to say goodbye to her.”

 

Her fingers touch the side of his cheek, cold and soothing. “Thank you for saving me.”

 

He did not answer then, only looking at her with those devastating eyes. “I would not have been able to live if I hadn’t.”

 

Arrangements were made, and Anakin was assigned to stay with her day and night. Padme did not mind Anakin’s company in the slightest, to be truthful, she found it comforting. He was her shadow, following her throughout her daily chores, standing by the entrance while she performed rituals over patrons, and even slept on the floor of her room during the night.

 

That was another issue. Apparently, she was so crucial to the upcoming ceremony that the priestesses could not afford to replace her. For her safety, Anakin had her switch rooms every night to make finding her more complicated.

 

At first, she felt awkward about him with his back against the wall, half lucid throughout the night. Anakin reassured her, telling her that he does not mind it in the slightest. Though she was not quick to believe him, the selfish part of her was glad that he was always there. In fact, the more time she spent with him, the more their bond grew.

 

After a particular ritual that involved Padme having to sacrifice a pigeon while deeply intoxicated with drink, she was half carried back to a new room with a new bed to sleep in. When Anakin put her down, she grabbed his cloak to keep him from leaving. “You are always sleeping on the floor. Why don’t you share the bed with me?”

 

“You know why.” Anakin gently detangled her fingers. “As much as I would love to spend the night sleeping right next to you, I know you would not want your maidenhood to be put in question by the elders.”

 

“But we still share a room. They don’t have to know that you share the bed with me, too.” It made perfect sense in her intoxicated mind. It was not as though servants barge into her room every morning to make sure her body had not been spoiled during the night, especially since the Mystics were considered too holy for such... things.

 

“Padme, I promise you will regret this in the morning.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead before trying to ease away from her again, but Padme’s grip was as unbreakable.

 

“Please, just this once?” Her voice became nothing more than a soft whimper. “I just want someone to hold me and tell me that everything will be fine. Please, Ani.” She had not realized that loneliness had stuck its claws into her heart until the remedy came to her, feeding her drops of companionship that she cherished above all things.

 

The bed shifted as his weight was added, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her close. “Don’t kill me in the morning.” He whispered, his breath tickling the back of her neck. This kind of intimacy was so incredibly foreign to her, yet she knew this was exactly what she needed. To feel love from another person.

 

And when it came down to it, was that not Aphrodite’s will? For people to love and be loved? Physical attention was the reason the temple had pleasure slaves, for it was offered for those who so desperately crave it under the blessing of the love goddess. Was that not her purpose, to offer her love to those who are deserving of it?

 

This love, this affection between her and Anakin was pure. Padme was certain of it. Their bond did not form out of the necessity of an arranged marriage, nor was it the heated passion of a passing fancy. This was something between equals, for one of them was not lording over the other. They could pull away at any time but did not, because they both chose each other. They  _chose_ the comfort of one another’s embrace.

 

Padme did not regret the next morning. Or the one after that. Or any of the many mornings following that night, lazily waking up in the embrace of someone she adored with every fiber of her body. For the first time in a long time, Padme felt happy. For the first time, Padme felt loved.

 

It was the most perfect part of her life, and from then on she would know nothing but strife.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One of Padme's story.


	14. Padme's Story, Part II

The temple was burned to the ground only a single week before Padme’s special ceremony. 

 

Padme woke to the smell of smoke, though Anakin had already been up for a few minutes ahead of her and had managed to find her shoes.  “We need to leave,” Anakin with a kind of finality that terrified Padme to the bone. Even so, she took the hand he offered and allowed him to lead her forward. 

 

When Anakin opened to door to the hallway, smoke permeated the room like an unwanted guest. Without a second thought, Anakin quickly shut the door and then walked over to the window, looking over the new escape route with a careful eye. He turned to Padme and gave her the most gentle of smiles. 

 

“This is going to be difficult,” Anakin said softly, her fingers drawing blood from his palm by how tightly she was gripping his hand, “but if you do exactly as I say, we will get out alive.”

 

Panicked, she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth in a surprise peck that shocked them both. “Lead the way,” she said breathlessly, trying to appear brave while in reality, she was barely holding on to her sanity with every passing moment.

 

Anakin climbed out of her window and onto the roof of the first floor. “It is safe,” he reassured her, retaking her hand and guiding her over the window sill.  “The tree over by the graves, it is large enough for the branches to reach us. You will need to get to the branches and climb down from there.” 

 

Padme nodded numbly, letting him pull her arm towards the bastion of safety. A large olive tree was miraculously planted right in front of tonight’s room, and soon she found herself standing just in front of its many branches. 

 

“Have courage.” Anakin squeezes her hand, and Padme faintly realizes that she had been holding onto it with a deathly tight grip for the past few minutes. “You can do this, Padme. You are strong.”

 

Padme, at her core, did not believe she was strong. Yet she somehow finds the strength in her to leap from the roof, her arms flailing for something to grab and finding a sturdy branch. After hauling her dangling body up to a safe perch, she watched Anakin to the same. Granted, his jump was much more gracefully executed than her own, but his success was still nonetheless relieving. 

 

He quickly showed her the most efficient way to shimmy down the trunk, having to reach out and grab her when her foot failed to find purchase. The fire quickly grew out of control, the heat from the temple roaring so loudly that it echoed inside Padme’s ears. The cement of the walls did not catch, but the ceilings that were reinforced with wood and thatch glowed orange with flame. Her body’s temperature rose, her skin quickly turning slick with sweat. Dirt clung to the palms of her hands as Padme scraped and grabbed and reached for the branches, the certainty that she will never know cold again strangling her will. 

 

Soon enough, they were both on the ground safely, covered in soot and choking on the poisoned air. The garden was beginning to catch, the greenery releasing dangerous amounts of smoke. Anakin placed his hand on Padme’s back, ushering her through the grounds and towards one of the gates. The high, cement walls of the temple would be impossible for any of them to climb, and there were no trees tall enough to aid them. They had to find a gate or choke to death. 

 

Standing around the entrance were figures, giving Padme an almost overwhelming sense of relief. Survivors! When she opened her mouth to greet them, Anakin clamped his hand over her face and pulled her down to the ground, just behind a bush that had not caught fire yet. Padme glared at him with an indignant look, though Anakin did not seem ruffled by her anger in the slightest. He leaned down until his mouth was at the shell of her ear, the heat of his breath sending pleasant shivers through her body. “They have weapons.” 

 

Her blood froze. Anakin looked up towards the gate, his mouth thin and eyes narrow. “Stay here,” he whispered, “don’t move until I come get you.” 

 

Anakin left her on the ground, his footsteps unbelievably light for someone of his size. As she laid against the dirt, shivering from shock and fear, Padme strained her ears for any sound of movement to suggest a fight. Nothing but the loud cracking of the cement straining under too much heat was heard. Blood lands on her tongue, her cracked lips bleeding into her mouth. 

 

“Hey.” A hand on her back caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. “Shh, it’s just me. They were not friends.”

 

Anakin helps her stand, her legs wobbling with fear and adrenaline. “What did you do?” She asked, her voice raspy with ash. 

 

“I took care of the problem,” Anakin said, his voice hard as stone.  

 

Bodies lay at odd angles along the wall, some wearing the plain garb of acolytes, others covered in dark linens embroidered with a sigil that Padme did not recognize. In the dull glow of the fire, the blood looks like mud smears against the wall, the deaths of the acolytes violent and terrible. The three men in the dark linens, however, could almost be mistaken for sleeping if Padme did not know better. 

 

“They were picking off any survivors trying to escape the fire,” Anakin mutters, “which more than likely means that there will be more people hunting down stragglers.” 

 

The image of an assassin picking off her sisters sent a wave of nausea through her body. “We need to go back and help them.” Padme turned around, searching for a sign that people were looking for help. “They need to know that there’s a safe exit.” 

 

Anakin grabs her arm urgently, though not harsh enough to hurt. “No. Padme, you cannot go back in there. We need to get you out of the city until we know what’s going on.” 

 

“People are  _ dying.”  _ Padme hissed, angered by his indifference to human life. 

 

“And you are not going to be one of them.” Anakin tried pulling her away, but Padme dug her heels into the ground and leaned away from his body, throwing her weight back towards the temple. 

 

“Anakin, if you do not let me help my people, I will fight you every step of the way. You can pick me up and carry me, but I will scream.” When Anakin opened his mouth to argue, Padme raised her voice and talked over him, “You can knock me out, but the moment I wake, I will try to escape. You will not be able to hold me indefinitely. I will not stop, and  _ I will never forgive you.” _ The last words were snarled, her frustration at being helpless enraging her further with every passing moment. 

 

Anakin stared at her. Padme could see him running the risks through his mind, internally deciding whether or not her eternal rage was worth a few human lives. It disgusted her. “I will go back in, alone,” Anakin said slowly, his face pinched with frustration. “But only if you stay in a hiding place of my choosing.”

 

Padme nods quickly to show agreement, since every second precious to someone who might be trapped with the smoke. 

 

“Follow me.” Anakin led her away from the city square, into a thin alley that reeked of death and decay. Confused shouts had begun to echo through the buildings as people woke to the smell of smoke. Amidst the steadily rising chaos, Anakin brought her through the steadily narrowing pathway with such speed and finesse that he must have been there before, somehow knowing to map an escape route. 

 

At the end of the ally, a pile of boxes and junk laid, carelessly tossed about. Once Anakin removed some of the boards out of the way, a cellar door was revealed. Seemingly with ease, he lifted the wooden cover, which could be easily mistaken for another layer of trash, and gestured for Padme to ease herself inside. The stairs are dry, but once on the ground of the cellar, Padme can see mildew growing in the corners. It smelled old and damp, though it was safe from the assassins and safe from a fire. 

 

“Walk further down this passage and wait. Do not come back up this way. If you hear anyone but me coming, run to the other end. It opens into a field.” Anakin reaches into his boot, withdrawing a small, wickedly sharp knife. “Use this on anyone who comes near you.” 

 

“Be safe,” Padme whispered to him, her fingers closing around his offered weapon. “Save as many as you can.” 

 

“I will.” Anakin nods at her, his voice ringing with determination and truth. “I promise.” 

 

“Goddess bless you,” Padme murmured as he placed the cover over the entrance. She followed his instructions, hand on the wall to keep her balance as she walked further down the hall. There she stood, for she could not sit against the damp, and hugged her arms close to her chest as her mind had nothing to do but review her many failures. 

 

It could have been hours or days, Padme had no way to tell. A chill had begun to creep through her muscles and into her bones, her teeth chattering every time she ceased pacing. Her muscles had just started to spasm when the passage’s cover shifts, light bleeding into the small hallway. True to her word, she quickly retreated back into the darkness. The knife’s hilt became slick in her palm, her grip and sweat making it difficult to properly grasp.

 

“It’s Anakin.” 

 

Padme almost felt her body melt at those two words. Without thinking, she dropped the knife and rushed forward, throwing her arms around his waist and holding him close. Something in between them gave a muffled cry of protest. Padme quickly stepped back, her eyes adjusting to the light, and saw a toddler being cradled in Anakin’s arms. 

 

Her breath hitched as she noticed a small group of children behind him. They were all wearing simple sack tunics, the typical garb for slave children, their faces smeared in soot. Tear stains cleared lines through the muck on their faces, some of them even sniffling right at that moment. Padme quickly helped Anakin usher the younger children down the stairs, murmuring comforting words to ease their fears. Once they were all inside, some sitting despite the damp seeping into their clothes, Anakin pulled her forwards for a quick conversation.

 

“I hid some others around the city.” He bent down to pick up the knife she dropped. “I figured it would save more time to not make so many trips back and forth.” 

 

“You did remarkably, Anakin.” Padme squeezed his hand, her lungs light with relief and joy. 

 

Anakin pretended not to be too excited with her praise, and continued, “it will take me a little while to gather the adults who survived. Once we leave the city, we can discuss this incident further and look at our options.” 

 

“Okay.” Padme nodded, softly smiling with relief. “I’ll take care of the children here. Thank you.” She stepped closer to him, taking his other hand into her own as well. “Thank you.” 

 

“I hope we can get out of the district alive,” Anakin muttered, unable to look her in the eye. 

 

“We will,” Padme said it with such conviction, she believed herself. 

 

While Anakin disappeared once more to retrieve the others, Padme managed to keep the nine children quiet and entertained with stories of demigods and monsters, the smallest merely happy enough to sit in her lap. By the time he returned, the children were wet and cold and ready for something to eat. 

 

Anakin had the foresight to bring food with him, loaves of bread in a knapsack. Padme did not ask where he got it, and Anakin did not offer up that information. Along with food, Anakin brought the rest of the survivors that he could find. Some had fled their hidings spots or were found, blood usually indicated if it was the latter. 

 

There were only six people left. Three were Padme’s priestess sisters. One was just an apprentice and still a long way from her womanhood. The elderly man that was one of the temple’s many groundskeepers was in the group as well. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the chief priestess. Padme dropped to the ground at the sight of her mentor and sobbed thankful words at whatever higher power deemed the old woman worthy of survival. 

 

Six adults, nine children. Fifteen survivors. Padme felt weak once more, even though the bread helped bring strength back in her body. Everyone ate while they walked, Anakin keeping the group of survivors moving as quickly as possible. Soon they were out of the passage, into an expanse of life and earth. They escape through a natural cave, hidden from view in the crevice of a stony hill. Out beyond them, rows of agriculture flowing with the wind like a golden sea. They must be in the farmlands bordering the stronghold of the city, the fields of wheat easily coming up to Padme’s waist. 

 

“Where do we go from here?” Padme turned to Anakin, whispering her question so no one would feel worried. 

 

“There is a retreat that the Mystics use only a few days of walking away,” Anakin responded. “It is almost never used. We should be safe there until this all dies down, and we are forgotten.” 

 

“That might take a while,” Padme muttered, then turned back to the group. She stood tall as she could muster, though she knew that she must have been a sight to behold. Cuts lined her arms and legs, a considerable scrape still stung on her shin. Dirt has gotten in every crack and crevice her body had to offer, under her fingernails, in her cuts, and saturated in her hair. All she had to wear was her nightdress, a thin slip of fabric that barely went down to her knees. No longer does she hold the appearance of a priestess, now she is nothing more than a street waif. Homeless. Hunted. 

 

“Brothers and sisters,” Padme looked at those who escaped the reaping, the people who took her in and raised her when her parents did not. Her people. Her responsibility. “It is not the time for mourning yet.” She inhaled, her breath shuddering with weakness and emotions she had not processed yet. “Last night was a planned attack against our way of life. The murderers will not cease until they are satisfied they have killed every person who served our temple.”

 

The look on the children’s faces tore Padme’s soul in two. To be so young and then faced death as they did, it hurt her heart like a twisting knife. “I am sure the Blessed Goddess would see to it our persecutors suffer, however, for now, we must take our religion and practice it in secret.” 

 

No one says anything, but they all watch Padme with rapt attention. 

 

“Anakin, my…” She hesitates just for a moment while she grapples for a proper term. Anakin was more than just her bodyguard, he was more than just a friend. But to say those things out loud to a crowd such as this would most likely not bode well. “Close advisor,” she decides, sharing a slight smile with him, “has an idea of where we can stay hidden for some time.” 

 

“Where?” One of the older priestesses asked, her face pinched with fright. 

 

“A few days of walking, but as long as we stay off the main roads, we should be fine.” She glanced over at Anakin for confirmation. At his sharp nod, she turned back to her people. “I know that this feels like the end. I assure all of you that this is only the beginning of a new chapter, one to be forged in blood and ash. We emerged from the flame like phoenixes, we said no to the death our enemies wanted for us.” These words were more aimed at the adults, the ones who needed a reason to stay with the group. 

 

Her next targets were a little more difficult to convince. Padme knelt so that she was on the children’s level, the soil was soft against her knees, the warmth of the sun erasing any chill left from the hours in the passageway. “I know in my heart that you all are the bravest people to ever live.” One of the smaller girls held out her hand for Padme to hold. Along the lines of the child’s palm were blisters in various stages of developing. “What’s your name?” She asked her gently. 

 

“Anthea.” The little girl said, her slight smile revealing gaps where her front teeth should have been. 

 

“Anthea,” Padme repeated, committing the name to memory. “You are going to have a very special job. I am going to anoint you as the official high priestess keeper.”

 

Anthea’s gray eyes looked large as twin moons as she nodded solemnly. 

 

“That means that you stay with the high priestess and make sure she is as comfortable as we can do with our given circumstances.” Padme elaborated, careful not to squeeze the girl’s sore hand. “And if anything seems wrong, you come to get Anakin or me.” 

 

“Do I get a special job?” One of the darker haired boys asked, raising his hand to get Padme’s attention. 

 

“Oh! Of course.” Padme quickly thought of something. “You… get to do a head count every evening when stop, to make sure we have everyone.” 

 

“What do I do if we are missing someone?”

 

“Tell one of us grownups straight away.” Padme turned as several of the children were raising their hands and demanding to be the next candidate for a special job. She managed to assign two more before Anakin calmly mentioned that the group had to be on the move to make their targeted time. 

 

When they started walking, Anakin led them to a path that looked like it had not been used in quite a while. Bushes were growing over the thin strip of dirt that, at least at some point, had been wide enough for Anthea to lay down and still have extra inches leftover, width wise. One of the brambles sliced across Padme’s ankle, though she did not notice until she felt the blood drip from the cut. 

 

There would be no way anyone who saw them would not know who they were. A group of just over a dozen, most of them in their nightclothes, and only three of them wearing shoes would raise anyone’s eyebrow. And if Anakin was right and there are people actively looking for them? Padme suddenly felt sick to her stomach. 

 

Perhaps that was why Anakin seemed so rigid, his body so tense even though they all seemed safely out of harm’s way. He regularly switched between walking at the front of the group to walking at the rear, sometimes even jogging ahead to search for oncoming farmers, though the path could not have been used in years. Occasionally he would turn around and check if everyone was still present, his eyes always resting on Padme first as though to reassure himself that he had not failed yet. 

 

“‘Scuse me, ma’am.” One of the girls tugged on Padme’s nightshirt.  

 

“What’s your name?” Padme asked her, giving the little girl a patient smile. 

 

“Penelope.” She spoke with such seriousness that Padme put her whole focus on her. “We have to be looking for my mama. She said she would meet me after I escaped.” 

 

“Oh, I see.” Padme nodded, though the feeling in her gut told her that Penelope’s mother would not be able to do that. “Well, I promise to look out for her and will tell Anakin to do the same.” 

 

“The man with the hair?” Penelope mimicked the swooping waves that Anakin sported with her hand. “He knows already. I just wanted to tell you, too.” 

 

“Well thank you for letting me know,” Padme said, her mind a little extra dizzy with the sudden responsibility of telling that little girl that her mother was dead. 

 

The sun became hotter as it rose higher in the sky, its rays just as merciless as before the temple massacre. Padme wished that Apollo would give them maybe the tiniest break, but it seemed as though nature was indifferent to the plight of humans as always. Only when the sun began to set did Padme feel any relief, her throat dry with thirst since there were no waterskins available to drink. 

 

Anakin stopped them about an hour before the dark of night truly set in, quickly instructing them to make a rudimentary camp. He led the group deeper into the forest, far away enough so that if anyone tried searching along the old path, they would not be seen. Though it took quite a bit, seeing as how most of the group had not stepped foot outside the temple since their childhoods, Anakin managed to build a simple structure to sleep in, one that would at least keep the rain off their heads should Zeus decide against pulling his punches as well. 

 

The children’s eagerness to please sent them around the skirts of the camp in search for specially shaped stones and sticks, following Anakin’s instructions on what to look for. By the time the shelters were built, the stars were twinkling in their smattered patterns across the blackened sky. And the children were hungry. 

 

Padme was well aware of the children’s hunger because they would not stop talking about how hungry they were. Each one made sure to let both Padme and Anakin know that they wanted to eat something, each one creating a feast for the adults to make more elaborate than the next. Of course, the main problem with that was because all they collectively had were the clothes on their backs. Perhaps it would have been straightforward for Anakin to go out and hunt if it were just him and Padme. But now he was on the prowl for all of them, and there was no single hunter in the world skilled enough to retrieve enough meat in only a few hours. 

 

That left him with stealing. 

 

“There is a nearby town,” Anakin said, only loud enough for her to hear. “I should be back in a few hours. All of you need to stay here and be quiet, I will bring back food.” 

 

Padme leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Stay safe.” She whispered over him like a blessing, though the prayer was not directed at any god. 

 

“You know me, Padme.” A sliver of his old self sparkled in his eyes briefly before it was extinguished. 

 

“Exactly my concern.” Padme gave him a tight hug, then let him go. “You come back in one piece.” 

 

Anakin’s smile grew suddenly strained. “Too late,” he said, disappearing through the trees before Padme opened her mouth to ask what he meant. 

 

During his absence, Padme just barely managed to keep the children entertained with a game that involved sitting in a circle and whispering a message in the ear next to them. They all burst into giggling fits when the convoluted sentence was said out loud by the last person in line. Even the apprenticed girl joined instead of helping the priestesses take care of their elder, and though she was a couple years older than the children, she seemed to enjoy herself significantly. 

 

Padme suddenly realized that most of these children never actually had childhoods. The slave children would have been aiding their mothers as soon as they could walk, only to know a life of difficult strife from the moment they left the womb. One of the smaller girls was covered in a thick layer of mud from wriggling through the kitchen pipes to keep them clean. Alexandros, the boy with the dark hair that was always eager to please, worked out in the gardens and was covered in long, thin scars from tool accidents and bramble cuts. 

 

It hurt Padme to see that, yet also filled her with hope. These children have survived the worst nightmare in their lives and came out still strong, still children. She just wished that she could protect them from all terrible things from that moment forward. They had seen enough. 

 

Anakin returned with a few loaves of bread, an empty wooden pitcher, and a wedge of cheese. Clutched in his hand was the simple tunic of a servant, and though it was much too small for Padme, it fit the apprentice girl perfectly. Padme helped her fasten the shoulder clasps and watched the girl twirl around in her new outfit, as overjoyed as a princess wearing a new jeweled crown. 

 

There were no fires that night, both Anakin and Padme agreed that they needed to take extra steps to stay hidden. While the kids were eagerly tearing into their rations, Anakin and Padme walked together towards a stream to fill the pitcher with water. 

 

“I never thanked you for saving me,” Padme said, the leaves crunching satisfyingly under her feet. 

 

“You do not need to,” Anakin responded gruffly. 

 

“Just because it is your job to do something does not mean I am allowed to be ungrateful.” Padme quipped, smacking her hip against his. “And I am most grateful that you went back and saved those people. So thank you.” 

 

When Anakin did not respond, Padme asked, “Are you mad that I had you go back?” His behavior since the fire was worrying. Though he physically kept his distance in front of others, he was never mentally distant. If something bothered him, Anakin told her. She found that she did not like this strange wall between them, not one bit. 

 

“I’m not upset at you, Padme, truly,” Anakin said once they arrived at the brook. He took the pitcher from her arms and knelt down to scoop up some water. 

 

“If you need to talk to someone, Ani, I am always here.” She used his old nickname, the one that his mother gave him. 

 

The water overflowed in the edges of the pitcher, the stream filling it up faster than Padme could blink, though Anakin does not lift it from the brook. In fact, he does not move at all. 

 

“Anakin?” Padme asked, her voice quiet. 

 

He turned to her then, his eyes overflowing with tears. “They barricaded the slave quarters.” 

 

“They-” Padme felt sick, her stomach churning and bile rising to her throat. 

 

“There are only two exits so that rioting could be easily put under control. They barricaded the slave quarters and then set the roof on fire.” Anakin took a deep breath, his knee still digging into the sand of the bank. “I thought that they would be the most likely to escape because all slaves know the ins and outs of the temple. I didn’t- I didn’t realize that-” He choked, looking at the ground. 

 

“Anakin.” Padme knelt beside him and put her arms around his waist, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” 

 

“There were only three windows, and none of them were big enough to fit a whole person, but the parents managed to push some of their children out, only to have the cultists murder them before I…” His eyes darkened. Before he took care of the problem. 

 

“Penelope told me her mother promised to meet her.” Padme realized, the connection making to much sense. 

 

“That was the only way to get her out. She was a stubborn one.” His mouth flickered up in the slightest of smiles. “Reminded me of someone, actually.” 

 

Padme took his hand. Their fingers folded together like they were molded for the other, like they were meant to be together. “You saved who you could.” It was the weakest reassurance, but the only one she could muster. Their lives were already so thoroughly ruined that the best they could do was be satisfied with what they could save. 

 

“If I had listened to you, if I had been there sooner…” His skin seemed green with sickness, at least several shades lighter than his normal tone. “I could have saved more. I could have done more if I wasn’t an idiot-”

 

“Anakin, no.” Padme squeezed his hand tighter. “We must not think like that, not now. Not when we have the people you did save, and they depend on us to bring them to salvation. We need to look forward and only focus on what is before us.” 

 

He held the pitcher, his grip turning his knuckles white. “You are right,” he admitted, as though it physically pained him to do so.

 

“Of course I am.” Padme kissed his cheek, her lips brushing against his growing five o’clock shadow. “Now let’s get this water back to our people.” 

 

_ Our people, _ she said. They were now Anakin’s as well, and she was going to make him see even though he did not think he could be accepted. They hold hands even as they walked back to camp, even under the bitter scrutiny of the elder priestess. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](https://padawantimelord.tumblr.com/) for updates on fics and illustrations!  
> 


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